Dark Eyed Men
by KayleighBough
Summary: The sight of them both, on bended knees in front of you, will make the world boil. – Two of NCIS are taken hostage, and the events that follow will shatter the foundations of all involved.
1. Prologue

**_- Prologue -_**

* * *

You got them on a flight of stairs.

Zurich couldn't have planned it better. They followed behind them up the stairwell, talking quietly like they were no-one in the world.

You heard them coming, heard Hassam's cough. So you opened the door, stood in the way.

There's two, not the one that you planned, but it's too late now. Hassam acts, and you obey.

It takes you less then a second to realise that your division of labour should have been thought through better; Zurich and Hassam take the male down in seconds. They assumed your bulk and the advantage of height would be enough.

When her fingernails nearly take out your eye, you think perhaps this was wrong.

Hassam is quick; he grabs her from behind, slams her into a wall. She staggers, and there is blood. Zurich gets her with a taser.

She falls, tremors.

Is still.

Her fingers are still wrapped tight around the knife. You look down at your side, to the pencil thin gash on your skin. A second later, she would have ripped out your organs to fall upon the stair.

You never even felt it.

* * *

There is little time.

You lift the man; he is floppy deadweight, so it's difficult to cover him in the black plastic Zurich unravels from his pocket. He's convinced the three of you will be able to sneak them out looking like garbage.

You're not sure; there's an obvious head loll and the cavities of eyes to your garbage bag. You feel stupid when you carry them out; months of planning, and it's so obvious as to what you're carrying. You may as well not have bothered. It's morning; no one's up yet. Your arms ache, and Zurich is breathing in snorts. You have to help him roll the woman in.

Hassam sees this, gives Zurich that look. Flat eyes, curling lips.

Zurich goes stiff beside you, and before the doors are rolled shut he's gone white.

You strip them of weapons, then hulk down as Hassam drives. You bind them both by the hands, then after discussion Zurich binds the woman's wrists, elbows and knees.

He's taking no chances.

* * *

You watch as they wake up.

The man first. His eyes pop open, like someone flicked a switch. His eyes train over Hassam, Zurich. Focus on you, clouded with blank confusion.

The woman gives a whispery moan, shudders.

Hassam drags them both to their knees. He picks the man because the woman's head is drooping; her face is white, blood worming down to drip from her chin. He kneels down in front, tells him what to recite. No paper; they don't want to look unprofessional.

Hassam laughed in Zurich's face, when Zurich told him to do that.

You feel slightly stupid, standing like this behind them. The gun is too heavy. Hassam moves away, turns on the camera.

The man doesn't sound scared. More dazed then anything; like he's sure he's about to wake up at any second, so may as well go along for the ride.

Hassam watches the recording they've made, and he frowns.

Watches it again.

You all practically hear the American swallow.

You glance down, and he's looking pale. The woman is staring at him sidelong as if to say: "What have you done?"

Hassam has found what he is looking for. He nods, just once. A sort of jerk up and to the left, like a nervous tick. You see it and step away quickly because you know what that means and you don't dare get in his way. Zurich sees it too; he isn't scared of Hassam like you are, but he hesitates all the same.

Enough time for Hassam to step forward, grab the American's hand and smash it with the butt of the gun.

You shut your eyes at the soft crunch. Then they're screaming in that harsh American, and you want to cover your ears.

You have to re-film it. The American is clutching his hand, and his voice shakes. Halfway through, the woman takes over because he looks like he's about to pass out.

Behind the camera, you see Hassam watch her. She's heard it once, when the American read it through the first time, and she's remembered perfectly.

He's watching her.

Zurich approves, sends it off. You and Hassam take them both, drag them into a cupboard beneath the basement stairs. The man is still clutching his hand, but the dazed expression is gone.

* * *

The media will love this, Zurich says.

The boy is American, fresh faced. And the woman is beautiful, that will gain sympathy. But most importantly, she is daughter to one of the most powerful men in Israel.

The sight of them both on bended knees in front of you will make the world boil.

It helps that the camera is clear, you think; the people can see the broken fingers, the twin pairs of eyes and the way she moved her hand to touch his side when he couldn't go on.

In sixty seconds of film, the world adores them for their tragedy.

Not even Zurich could have planned that.


	2. Chapter One: McGee

**- Chapter One -**

"_Shoofi mafi?"_

"…_Ma adhri."_

He is aware.  
From consciousness to the white fire of knowing he is suddenly here, awake and in pain.

"_Asre!"_

"_Aasef."_

Dirt grinds under his cheek. There is a smell, like new paint and sweating metal.  
He can't feel his hands.

"_Tamaam."_

His eyes flick open. Above him a mountain stares down, and it starts when it sees his look.

_What…_

Whisper of noises. He feels her shudder, turns his head.

"Up."

Fist around his collar, dragging him to his knees. Sparks shoot in front of his eyes as his blood loses equilibrium.

"You."

It must be him. The man with the heavy jaw looks down at him.

"…What?" He croaks it out.

The man kneels down. When he speaks his breath touches McGee's face and it makes him gag.

"Repeat."

McGee listens and he will, but he will never really know what he said. The meanings are lost in the drumroll of his head.

The man steps back. A red light blinks awake.

He repeats. The fog pulses in his head, and he wishes he could just close his eyes. He talks, and dark eyed men watch him.

Thoughts start to surface, bobbing like flotsam.

Worry. Ziva?

She's limp beside him. He looks sidelong, and sees her eyes are open. She blinks, turns her head as he speaks. Reflex actions, because there's a dullness to her.

Question in his head. Uncertainty. _Where...?_

**This does not feel real.**

It penetrates through slowly. Ink in water. Camera. Men…  
Threats in what he's saying.

His voice doesn't change. He doesn't lift his head. But there's a low buzzing inside his head, rising until it's a howling swarm. His eyes move between them.

One. Behind the camera. Shuffling shoulders, heavy jaw.  
Two. Giant behind. Holding the gun and standing very still.  
Three. Watching them both from the side. Hollow cheeks and eyes that sink like twin pits.

One, two, three.

And just like that, his fingers unfurl. One, two, three. They're thinking faster than him.

He finishes.  
Lowers his head.

The man with the jaw watches on the camera. He fists his hand, hides away his guilt.

She knows.  
Ziva.  
Her head lifts suddenly. Eyes flick open, turn to look at him.

The man behind them steps back just as quick. McGee turns his head, distracted. He doesn't see the twisting movement, but he does feel his fingers break.

He might have screamed. It could have been anyone, because suddenly they're all yelling.

"You signaled! You signaled!" He's screaming it in his face, with breath that could skin a horse. Ziva lunges and her fist nearly touches him. She's jerked back out of sight.

McGee is hovering at the edge of blackness as his arm burns cold like acid. His fingers are wrong, they're not supposed to look like that—

They make him start again.

He tries, he really does. His nerves fizz and his consciousness gutters. He can't hear through his wailing hand.

Takes him a while to notice when Ziva takes over. He only realises when her hand touches his side.

* * *

"They are broken."

Ziva's voice is frank. Never could accuse her of softening the blow. Her thumb and forefinger are pressed against his palm, trying to straighten fingers that split off at the second knuckle to a forty five degree angle.

The sight makes his head light. He clenches his jaw, a groan grinding from his teeth. He wants to jerk away, but there's nowhere for him to go.

The place they are in is tiny. If it was him alone, it would not be entirely comfortable. But there's two of them, and so it's no longer not entirely comfortable but instead anxiously cramped. Had he stretched out his legs, arms, he would have easily touched all four walls with limbs still bent.

"I kind of figured." It was meant to sound flippant, but it comes out strained.

She doesn't reply. She's looking down at the pen and three cloth strips in her lap, and she doesn't look happy.

Not surprising. They're in a room that's barely four feet square, not even tall enough to stand, and she's going to splint his fingers. Her hands are moving slowly through the fog, assessing the splintered bone. He swallows, shuts his eyes.

Ziva's quick. Grabs his wrist, pulls the finger straight. He nearly dislocates his wrist trying to pull away, foot jerking into her stomach.

She rubs her abdomen ruefully. "Not that way."

McGee pulls his hand against his chest. "No."

Against the floor, wrist pinched hard by his other hand, then straight out in the air. Neither work; his reflexes won't bare it.

In the end, he ends up with his wrist pressed hard between her knees so he can't flinch away. He shuts his eyes, focuses on staying awake and not throwing up all over them both.

Less than an hour has passed since they were put in here; they've said nothing outside of the task at hand. He suspects neither of them can cope with what's happening.

Fix the fingers. Then deal with everything else.

She's got the first strip tied. The blood cuts off in his wrist, but he can't say he minds. Breathe through his nose, out through his clenched teeth. Watch the black curl at the edge of sight.

It's odd. This feels real. Not the room, not the men outside. He has his wrist held between Ziva's knees, and somehow he's not surprised.

Must be the concussion.

"Are you alright, McGee?" Her eyes are focused on keeping the bones as straight as possible. He wonders if she knows there's blood across her face.

"I was just thinking I would end up with my hand between your knees."

Her mouth quirks.

"…I mean—"

"Excited?"

".... Is there a right answer to that question?"

"We'll see." She tightens the third strand of fabric. "This will have to be enough."

As she says it, there's a chill over him. He looks up at the buzzing light bulb and shudders at the way sound is swallowed by the walls.

Ziva's socked feet are pressed against his leg, and he can feel her trembling. She realises because she jerks away, half standing to runs her hands over the wall.

Tony mentioned once that Ziva had a fear of enclosed spaces. McGee can't really say he agreed then, though now as he watches her press her hands against the door, he wonders.

But then, he can't say he is not scared, either.

* * *

They pile it in the centre between them. All things that could be useful.

Socks. Shoes. Empty gun holster (3x). Watch (2x). Receipt.

No belt. No tie. No shoelaces. They even took Ziva's scrunchie.

"What did they expect us to do?"

"You would be surprised." She looks unenthused. "Any ideas?"

"I really wish I'd watched more McGyver. Where's Tony when you need him?"

"There must be something useful in these." She picks up the watches. They're both analog, and both say that it's been ten hours since they started to climb the stairs to interview a suspect.

Gibbs is going to be pissed. They're very late.

He twitches as Ziva smashes her watch against the wall. It makes a crinkling noise, like tinfoil. She does it again, and it crumbles in her hand.

Now they have glass, paper thin gears, a tiny battery. Ziva wipes her bloody hand against her trousers, picks up the largest shards of glass. He eyes it.

"Ever killed someone with bits of a broken watch?" Sounds like a rhetorical. Or the title of a Salvador Dali. Reality should be less desperate.

Her grin is wry and a little dangerous. "There is always a first time." She hands him back his watch.

"Too expensive?"

"Knowing the time is worth more than weapons." She smiles slightly. "Plus it is too hard to break."

He snaps his watch back on, then picks up the largest gear of hers. It's fragile, but with a serrated edge.

There's a first time for all things. Like cutting a jugular with tiny bits of metal.

Ziva stills. "Do you hear that?"

A low drone. Starts out soft, then seems to make the ground vibrate.

"Helicopter?"

It fades, then comes again. They both stare up at the ceiling.

McGee's heart is ecstatic. They've been found. He hasn't even started believing he's here yet, but they've found them.

Then a dull thud that makes the walls tremble. Cosmic whump through the earth.

His heart is uneasy. "What was that?"

"Mine." Ziva's lips barely move.

The drones fade.

They wait for a long time, unmoving. His watch does a revolution twice.

Nothing.

"They must have…gone?" He turns to look at Ziva. The disbelief has leaked into his voice.

And the emotion that is a mutation of disappointment. The knowing that this will last longer than they hoped.

Her lips are pressed together, and she says nothing.

* * *

They wait until his watch tells them it's midnight. The adrenalin fades, and they give in to the fact they must rest eventually.

They sleep badly and not at all. He stays stiff as a board to try and keep on his side, and she doesn't move a muscle. The floor is hard earth and scrapes against bone, and he feels his muscles cramp.

He watches the clock through the night, hands marching round and round.

No one comes.


	3. Chapter Two: Lenny

_A/N: I feel I should explain something. There has been some expression(s) of disappointment that Tony was not the one there with Ziva; there is a very specific reason I chose to keep him out of harm's way which may become clearer as the story progresses. All things considered, you may be glad I did._

_Aside from that, as a rule I prefer pairings to be open to interpretation, so draw what conclusions you will. :)_

* * *

**_- Chapter Two -_

* * *

**

You hear the helicopters first.

Two of them, dangerous and insect like. Then, on the ground. Trucks. They traced your vehicle.

Traced the video.

Zurich and Hassam are on the controls, waiting for the call. Waiting for someone to get too close.  
Someone does. You see a flash of sandy hair, rounded cheeks, before he disappears in a puff of smoke that throws him apart.

They stop, regard. Retreat. The drone of the helicopters grates as they circle.

Outside it's more a machine than anything. It doesn't have a face yet.

When the face does appear, it's bald with a donut of hair and a grouchy pug face.

Zurich doesn't keep the link open for any longer than it takes to send the demands. He knows the game, knows the little wheedling tricks of negotiators.  
He's having none of that.

* * *

It's night, by the time the reply comes. There are noises coming from the cupboard.

The message is abrupt.

_We will pass the message on. Wait._

* * *

So you do.

You were never sure where Zurich got Hassam from. You know he's ex military, he's done a lot of things you can't even imagine.  
Don't know a lot about Hassam. But he was there, when Zurich found you.

You worked in the fish markets. Big enough to cart the tuna, to disembowel them with those metal hooks.

You owe people money for bringing you here. Zurich said he'd pay them, and enough for your sister too.

Deliver her without strings, with a payment that is escapable.

* * *

First day.

Zurich is on the screen, making his demands. Talking to Israel.

You take the woman to use the 'latrine'. That is the word Hassam uses. The word you would choose would be 'bucket'.  
Zurich and Hassam fought about who should guard her, but Zurich says he doesn't trust him to be alone with her. You think perhaps Zurich should have relented; the woman could have held her own, and Hassam takes it out on the American while Zurich isn't looking.

American boy. Something worrying about him. Got a funny look to his eye. They don't notice he's counting every shot. Doesn't look like the vengeful type.

She does. She scares the piss out of you.  
She smiles at you with those very even teeth, even with a gun and a knife between you. You hate her for making you quiver because you both know it. She turns her back without a thought.

Both smart. They talk and talk in that little room. Zurich says they're making plans. He likes to listen in. When he rests, he has his ear pressed against the staircase. He listens to their conversations, and sometimes you catch him laughing.

"What?" You keep asking, but he waves you away. Eventually he tells you that they have given the three of you nicknames.

Hassam is the Screamer. They loathe him, and you think that is stupid of them. Zurich is far more dangerous. Zurich himself is Cabbie.

They call you Leni.

Hassam finds this funny. "Leni. Leni, such a female name!"

Zurich smiles. "Lenny. Powerful, dumb giant. Very you."

You don't get it.

* * *

Zurich hears something. When they take the American to use the bucket, they tie his ankles and wrists. Tell him he'll get a gag too, if he tries IT.

IT. Must have been a hell of a plan, for that emphasis. Shame they don't know how easy it is to listen in. They only see a tiny part of the basement you're in; for all they know it's a building. Not this tiny room with partitions.

You get the honour of tying the woman. Even with the gun your hands shake.

She doesn't smile, but she turns her back all the same.

Night sets.

Day Two.

* * *

You expected demands every half hour, to-ing and fro-ing between you, asking to see the prisoners. Everything Zurich said.

Anticlimax.

They made you wait forty-eight hours before they got back from Israel. You moved at just the wrong moment, right when four militia blew up a religious school on the border to Gaza.

And what you got?

_We'll see what we can do. Wait._

Hassam doesn't seem bothered. Zurich went wide eyes and white, like when Hassam gives him those looks of contempt. He sat and planned what he would do to the hostages, prove he wasn't joking. Hassam told him to act a man, play the game.

You don't like this tension. They bicker, and you hear the two talking in the cupboard.

You barely sleep.

* * *

"They're up to something."

"Who?"

"Outside."

There always seems to be a helicopter overhead. Droning.

It gets very hot down here. You're becoming bored of the game. This is taking far too long.

* * *

Five days.

The two in the cupboard are getting antsy. Well, the man is. The woman's downright vicious. She's got a cold from the damp, and she's driving everyone including herself mad from coughing.

You always have the gun when you take her to use the bucket, because you can't trust her. Not for a second. You have to untie her hands. Last time you touched her she tried to head butt you.

You're thinking of that when you untie the last knot. It's how she catches you unawares.

She bites your fingers to the bone.

You yelp, drop her. She grabs for the gun, but you fall over and get in her way. She aims for the knife instead, but suddenly Hassam and Zurich appear and it's chaos.

They planned it. You'd gotten slack, forgotten to lock the door. The man has wriggled out of his bonds, and he's behind you, fingers on the gun.

You grab for him. He's faster, wriggles away.

Too slow for Zurich, though.

Zurich swings a chair and gets him across the face, flattening it.

A snarl. You turn just as Hassam throws his weight behind his fist. She practically flies into a wall.

Then she's down.

Zurich panics, runs for the cameras.

Hassam finds the gun at last, makes them lie on their stomachs with hands behind their head. He turns, waiting. Should this be blown, he's ready to take them out.

Movement.

You glance down, watch the woman's hand start to move towards the man. His eyes are half closed, blood masking his face. You nudge her gently with your foot, and the hand snaps back.

Zurich comes back.

Safe.

Beside your feet, the woman closes her eyes.

* * *

Hassam makes then kneel with their hands behind their head.

For twelve hours.

You take turns keeping watch, an hour long. You come after Zurich, and you suspect he makes them suffer. The four times you came, they seemed relieved. You pretend to be watching the computers, so its like you aren't noticing how they slump down, faces against the dirt and trembling with tiredness. By the end they can't move, twisted in pain because muscles have seized up into stone.

Hassam tells them to stand, and you watch as they realise they cannot. It's that sudden sharp look in their eye, that quickening of breath.

Bound without bonds.

At your last shift, Zurich tells you to stay in the other room. He is not finished with the punishment, but you must keep watch.

* * *

You hear noises.

There's a hot buzzing on your skin, and you're trembling. Zurich is laughing. You know that kind of laughing and you hate it hate it hate that nasty sound like bubbles—

Noises. You cover your ears, hum to yourself.

But despite yourself, you can't help but watch the curtain rippling.

Curious.

But not nearly enough.

Far more scared to know what they are doing behind that curtain.

* * *

Behind the curtain there is silence, and your stomach hurts.

You are sure someone is watching. There are shadows behind the trees.

When you sleep you feel their roots. Reaching through the cracks in the floor to slide like a tongue into your ear, to pop your eyes from the insides.

You can't bear the silence.


	4. Chapter Three: Tony

**_- Chapter Four -

* * *

_**

_We were a proud people, once. We were kind and strong and had mercy. Before the creation of Israel, we had peace._

_These people stole your land, stole your country. Your ancestors worked and bleed and loved on that land, and they stole it away. For their God, for their greed._

_The world did not care. The UN protests without feeling, the West turns away. We died on our land, our skeletons are the foundations for their houses. This world does not care for you._

_But I care._

_And I promise you, I will have no mercy._

* * *

He wakes up suddenly.

Switches from off to wide awake and tingling.

He blinks. Shakes his head. The bullpen comes into focus from the dimness; around him, the desks are empty.

Nothing in the Gibbs slot, the Ziva slot. He's at McGee's desk, so no McGee.

_(Guess there's no-one in the Tony slot, either.)_

He rubs his face, wiping off drool from his cheek. As an afterthought, he rubs the desk to remove the stain he's left. There's something oddly pathetic about the fact he fell asleep at McGee's desk.

_(Like a dog pining.)  
(I'm not pining for McGee.)  
(Who are you defending yourself from? No one to care here.)_

Someone has settled a blanket over his shoulders. He shrugs it off and throws it over the back of the chair.

"You awake?"

Gibbs has been watching the whole motion from beside the flat screen. It's an odd phrase for him to bring up now, considering. Means there's something hidden behind the question.

"Yeah." His eyes travel to the screen. Blue with faint flickering red.

"Any change?"

"No." Gibbs is rolling his green stress ball around his hand. Tony watches.

"Anything from the FBI?"

"No." The ball crushes to nothing.

Tony stands, thinks of heading to autopsy. Then he changes his mind, reverses, starts to head up to Jenny. Changes his mind again

He comes to stand before the screen.

The flickering embers of them are reclined. It looks like they're sleeping.

It'd be funny if they were. God, he'd die laughing if that's what they were doing.

Or maybe not.

His eyes narrow, and he searches.

There.

A darker patch, more green than red. Must be many lines of concrete between it and the camera.

Larger patch, for the two of them.

"They haven't been moving much," he says.

Silence. The green atomizes in a sinewed hand. Gibbs releases his grip and puts the stress ball on his desks, walks into the gloom.

They're not more than twenty feet away from the one of the guards that stands in a ring of embers around the house.

They would be easier to reach if they were lost at sea.

* * *

For all their thoughts of skill, of training, they walked into the net with the smallest of fuss.

_(We all did.)_

Anonymous call. Accent not determinable; he had seen several boxes marked in Arabic script come into the apartment building next to his from a truck marked from the dockyards. Money had been exchanged. Probably nothing.

But really, someone should have guessed then. Trucks from the dockyard aren't marked. Who can read Arabic script from a hundred feet?

Whatever the case, Ziva as the resident Arabic expert was doomed from the start. It was all a matter of who else shared the claim.

He was never in any danger. The spit ball he had gotten in McGee's ear had saved and damned in one soggy shot.

"McGee: go with her."

"Boss!"

"You're still on time out."

"C'mon, that's not fair—"

McGee grinned. "Bye Tony."

Tony scowled at their retreating forms. Ziva flicked her fingers in a mocking wave, and he pulled a face at her.

No danger at all.

* * *

_(Why not Gibbs?)_

Maybe he had thought it nothing, wasn't going to waste his time. Maybe he was waiting for a call. Maybe he wanted Tony to stop spitballing McGee. Maybe it was too cold out for his bones.

He keeps finding these thoughts wandering in and out of his head.

Every time he turns to ask, his voice fails.

Because Gibbs is wearing a look that says he doesn't know either.

* * *

He can't remember what happened between then and what came next. The next memory in sequence is when Abby crashes into him and nearly throws him back onto his desk.

"Abby, what the hell?"

"Gibbs, turn on the TV!"

"What?"

Gibbs looks at her. He is very still.

"ZNN." Her voice carries, because it's suddenly quiet.

Tony still had his hand around Abby's arm. She trembles.

Gibbs flicks it on.

Tony watches, confused. He sees a female reporter, **Breaking News **flashes at him. Something about an uploaded video. Then the scene changes.

The words fade out. Tony gapes, air rushes out and he's actually shaking.

And there they are.

McGee's hand is clawed against his stomach, the fingers are warped. His skin is shiny and white like a dead body.  
Tony's eyes turn. Ziva. She's turned to look at McGee, and it's like those nightmares where the person turns and the face is monstrous. Her cheek is dark with white cracks showing through the crust.

His brain processes. _No,_ it says.

So he feels nothing.

McGee falters. His eyes are glassy and through the speakers Tony can hear his quiet gasps. Beside him Ziva starts to speak, touching his side gently.

It's that small moment that makes Tony sit down very hard.

It ends, and he almost doesn't realise.

The reader is looking excited. Putting up a number on screen. It's just in, no-one knows who they are. Been beamed to all the major networks. Whoever knows first will get the scoop of a lifetime.

They know.

Everyone seems very calm. Tony can't understand, because he's torn between wanting to scream or sit down and tremble.

He's still holding on to Abby's arm.

"But they only went out this morning," he hears himself saying.

"They were just here…"

* * *

The calm doesn't last long. He remembers calling the number, the number on screen. FBI hotline. Remembers thinking that with any luck he'll get Fornell. "_Hey, you been watching the news? Well, you'll never guess who we just saw…_"

He's on hold. He glances up, sees Abby starting to panic. Gibbs grabs her by the arm, yanks her still. Pain flickers across her face.

"Go downstairs. _Wait_."

Her mouth makes a little 'o', and Tony feels a clenching under the numbness. She backs away from him, then turns and pushes her way through the people.

In the end, he calls Fornell directly.

* * *

_It's McGee and Ziva. Call Gibbs. Now._

* * *

He only remembers fractures of what comes next.

Traces. Searches. A bubbling haze in his head.

A house in the woods. Single story, surrounded by dogwood and red hickory trees.

He remembers one stolen moment of hope, watching helicopters circle. Sees men advancing through the trees towards the clearing. He has half imaginings and half smirks of how much he is going to taunt them for this whole stupid little thing.

Perhaps they should have had more caution.

After all, the clearing around the house is a perfect circle. Nature is never perfect.

Tony sees footage from the helicopter first. It looks like a tiny puff of smoke from above. Eye level is a different story. At eye level you can see the person vanish inside the cloud, spray out.

He hears moans, a hiss of breath. He makes no noise, but leaves oozing crescents in the palm of his hand.

They pause for a moment, considers the crater.

Everyone retreats to the trees.

* * *

The last think he remembers is Gibbs.

Gibbs silent, eyes wide and seeming black in the twilight. Chest twitching out with each breath, fists curled loosely at his sides.

Gibbs, afraid.

* * *

Nine hours. 1:00 AM.

Gibbs is almost foaming at the mouth. No one will say why the FBI has not moved in. No one has gone home, but there is nothing they can do. There's too many people. He has a headache and really wants to just lie down.

He sees her through the crowd, manages to heave himself towards her.

"Abby—"

"Tony, what the _hell _is happening?!" Her fingernails are biting into his arms. He peels her off with a wince, explains.

"Abby, calm. Okay?"

She looks like she wants to strangle him. Then she takes a breath. "Okay."

"Now like you actually mean it."

"Tony, what's going on? Why are they still_ in_ there? Oh my god, McGee, he..." Her hand presses against her mouth, and she moans.

He remembers them, Ziva's eyes boring into him. "I don't know."

When Fornell comes at last, for a moment Tony is afraid (in the loose, numb sense) that Gibbs is going to hit him.

"I work with homicide, Jethro. Anti-terrorism is not really my job." Fornell's eyes are dark with anger and regret. They're already dead to him.

Tony wants to stand and land the punch Gibbs hasn't managed.

"Gibbs, you really don't understand how–"

"Delicate the situation is?" Spits it, throws the phrase from him like it tastes foul.

"No. Dangerous."

"Go in there and get them out!"

"Jethro."

Jen's voice is clear, carries across the room. Her eyes are sad, just as there is murder within Gibbs's.

"We can't."

* * *

"Zurich, real name Sabah Qabbani."

That's what Fornell tells them both, in the Director's office. Jen looks ill when he says the name, and Tony wonders how bad this is going to get.

_(Oh, it's bad.)_

By now they've found footage of them being taken, being bundled into a van. Tony feels physically sick. He can see the ghost skull of McGee's head under the plastic.

Then later, footage from the stairs. Grey, grainy. Mostly from the wrong angle, though a spectacular shot of Ziva jolting from the taser.

But it's the man.

As they bend over the bodies (just unconscious, they're just unconscious), he looks up. Stares straight at Tony, it seems. Then he turns to the left, giving a mocking profile to the camera. He is not afraid that they know who he is.

In fact, Tony thinks, it may be his best weapon.

"We know his pattern."

Gibbs has nothing to do with this case. Anti-terrorism on this scale is above such an organisation as NCIS. To be told this much is an act of pity from Fornell.

"Born we think in Afghanistan, but there's rumours he's Iranian. Lived in Austria, Sweden, and Greece with his mother from the age of five. Got into some pretty heady groups, but he doesn't seem to have a particular sympathy. Arrested for blinding a policeman in Hamburg during what was supposed to be a peaceful protest.

"First time on the public stage was in Germany. Zurich, 1999. Unplanned. He took two police officers hostage and demanded the release of a group of incarcerated Syrian immigrants. After a twelve hour stand-off he shot both officers and escaped."

"Escaped?"

Jen gives a smile without humour. "You think that's bad, wait until you hear the others."

Tony leans forward. "Links to Al-Qaeda?"

"No links to any terrorist organisation. He works for himself." Fornell's lip curled. "He says he's a freedom fighter."

He looks down at his notes again. "Second time. First planned attempt, in 2002. He and four others took three French journalists – civilians – hostage in Egypt. Asked to free prisoners in Israel."

"Denied."

"Of course it was denied." Jen's fingers tease the top of a whisky bottle. "There were no prisoners."

Gibbs stares. It's the closest he's ever got to being baffled. "What?"

"Not the point." Fornell's fists clench without his knowing. "The bastard just loves the attention. The Egyptian and Syrian media loved him. Turned him into a fighter against Israel."

Gibbs looks at his hands for a moment. When he at last speaks, his voice is quiet. "What happened?"

"Negotiation attempts. They refused to talk, twisted words, claimed this and claimed that. When attempts persisted they shot one of the prisoners. The military stormed in. The group had vanished, leaving the headless bodies of the other two."

Tony feels the mental image stick sharp in his head.

"Third time. Afghanistan, 2005. Took a movie theatre hostage with four armed militia. After a thirteen hour standoff a series of explosions collapsed the front section of the theatre. Of the forty trapped inside, only four survived the fire. The bodies of two of the militia were recovered."

"So this is his fourth attempt."

"It would appear he has learnt from his past mistakes." Jenny looks bitter.

"His plan is to get as much attention as possible, drive the media into a frenzy. Then..."

Tony feels sick. "Then no more hostages."

"So what?" Gibbs doesn't care about this. Here and now, his people are in danger.

"We can't move in. The minefield would stop that already, but we can't go in directly. If we do, Agent McGee and Officer David _will _be executed, I guarantee you that."

"So what? We wait him out?"

"Yes."

"We wait him out, while they are still in there."

"Jethro, the minute we even think about getting close, they're dead."

"No negotiations, either."

"No."

Gibbs looks desperate. "Then what?"

Fornell shifts. He knows Gibbs isn't going to like this.

"We wait. Give him nothing. Try and find a way in. Incapacitate them somehow."

Tony cradles his aching head. Of all the idiots in the world, it had to be his two.

"Why them?"

Fornell rolled the glass around his hand. "I think the more pertinent question is, why Eli David?"

* * *

For the next few days no-one is really sure what's happening.

The media is in ecstasy, and it's not from that video. Turns out the main man himself has been sending out letters. Gibbs works out his rage on uncooperative journalists while the FBI orders media silence.

Fat chance of that. The first terrorist attack on US soil since the big one; people are bound to pay attention.

Talks between them and the men in the house. Brief, vague. The replies back are just the same, and Tony wonders what they're playing at.

They're in the basement underneath the house. Thermal imaging strains through the concrete. Indeterminate blobs flicker, and there could be any number of people down there.

Jen keeps them updated best they can. There's been talks between Ziva's father and the FBI. Arrangements of some kind. Tony likes to think that if he got kidnapped by a narcissistic sociopath his father would at least pretend he cared.

* * *

It's four in the morning. He's bleary, feeling slightly ill.

Ninety hours.

Doesn't sound that long, but it is forever when you haven't slept.

Jen's sent everyone home. Nothing they can do in the dark. Better to wait it out. She's remained calm to Gibbs's quiet rage. She sits in her office and makes round after round of calls, and sometimes she learns things. She's got them the live feed of the thermal camera, so now they can watch as well as do nothing.

So Tony sleeps at McGee's desk, and Gibbs has had enough.

"Tony. Go home."

"And do what? Watch TV? They've practically got their own station now."

"Tony…"

"I'm staying."

Gibbs looks at him, and his eyes soften.

"Fine. Find somewhere to sleep that's not in the way."

He thinks Gibbs wanted it to sound harsh, snapping. But it comes out tired.

There's nowhere on the main floor. Too many agents, too much light.

He wanders, thinks morgue.

Then he stops.

* * *

It's dark in the lab.

He's fairly sure Abby's only gone home once since it started. He nearly trips over a bag bursting with clothes, does trip on her toothbrush. It pinwheels across the floor to slap against the wall.

Her head jerks up from behind the computer.

"Sorry," he whispers.

"Tony? What's happened?"

"Nothing, I just came to get some sleep."

She exhales. "Oh."

He realizes he hasn't talked to her for three days. Barely seen her. Her screens are working, scrolling through hundreds of faces.

She's curled up on a duvet he recognizes from her house. He kneels down next to her.

"What have you been doing?"

"Been trawling through Codis. Trying to get background noise off the video." Her eyelids droop, then shut. "Trying to clear up the images of the other two guys…"

He knows she's been doing more. Evidence bags are packed in the corner of her lab six deep. Stuff's been filtering through for days.

He waits for the rest of the sentence, but it never comes. She's dozed off mid sentence.

She smells tired. How can someone smell tired?

He looks down. The duvet is pretty wide...

"Shoes off."

He looks at her, affronted. She smirks at him, even with her eyes closed.

The linoleum presses against his shoulderblades, even through the fabric. He rolls onto his side, then looses feeling in his arm.

"Do you think they're okay?" she says after a time.

"I dunno. But they will be. Gibbs will kill them if they're not." Stupid response. But no good will come out of saying any of the other things knocking around his head.

(Kill himself if they're not).

"They must be scared."

"Yeah."

"McGee'll be going crazy. He can't stand being in the same clothes for more than one day," she says after a moment.

"Ziva hates being cramped," he observes.

Vague worries. Tony knows that the fears will be far sharper, more terrible than what he and Abby can comprehend.

She falls quiet, and his eyes close. He dreams of a box on his desk, small enough but with black hair curling from the gaps.

She shakes him awake, gently.

"I'm fine," he croaks.

Yes, he is fine.

But they are not.


	5. Chapter Four: McGee

_A/N: Just letting you guys know that a friend of mine named 88keys wrote a oneshot companion piece for this called _Story Of The Year_, which fits in really nicely just here. I'd really suggest you read it, because a) it's awesome and b) I may make some references to it later. _

* * *

_**- Chapter Three -**_

_**

* * *

**_

On day two, they plot and plan.

Between them, they know enough about hostage situations to know what to expect. They know the risks.

They may only get one chance.

They draw a box in the dust, then another. The total of what they know.  
Their room. The room outside.

"This is disheartening."

"Could be worse."

"How?"

"…We could be blindfolded?"

"Hmph." Ziva rubs her head. "We should assume for the moment that there will be no attempt to rescue us."

"_That's_ disheartening."

She laughs. Bitterly. "Israel does not negotiate with any terrorist. Being on American soil will give them the excuse they need not to."

"But your fath--"

He stops very quickly at her look.

No mention of Gibbs. They know without saying that he will come. The time he takes is another matter.

They label the men. Screamer, who broke McGee's fingers. Cabbie for the hollow cheeked one, who looks like a cab driver Ziva knew once. Lenny for the big one with the gaping mouth.  
Little lies of control, giving them names.

"I think they have computers somewhere."

Ziva frowns. "The cables?" Twin blue running along the wall. Even half conscious she doesn't miss a thing.

"If I could get to them..."

What? He doesn't know.

Her eyes narrow. "I can distract them."

"You sure? There's three of them."

That smile. "Only three?" She rubs the shard of glass between her thumb and forefinger.

Ziva with a piece of glass against three men with guns and knives.  
No chance.

The door jerks open.

They jump. McGee turns, hand brushing the drawing away.

Screamer. His eyes flick, then focus on him.

"You need to go?"

McGee nods, standing. They learnt fast it is better to go when asked.

* * *

He knows there is something wrong the moment the door is closed behind him.

A smack to the back of his knees topples him. He scrabbles upward, freezing as a gun strokes his ear.

Fear slides across his shoulder blades. One of them kneels down to eye level.

Cabbie. Smile on his face, knife balanced between his fingers.

"Do you think we are wrong, in what we are doing?" His voice is pleasant, calm. McGee hesitates. He can feel the prickle of sweat beading on his skin. The knife winks light at him.

They were listening.  
The computers must be important, to get a response like this.

He speaks carefully. "I think to you your reasons are justified."

Cabbie shows his teeth. "Very diplomatic."

The knife moves, hovers in front of McGee's left eye, drifts to his right. Then taps his nose.

"Know this." The man's voice is quiet. "If you try to cross us, we will not treat you fair. You will get no second chances, and there will be no mercy."

He smacks him lightly on the cheek, stands up. "Remember that you called me Cabbie. That is how you treat the people of my country."

* * *

They tie them up.

That is all.

McGee finds he can breathe, and knows that he should be thankful that this was all they got. He doesn't though. He can feel anger in him, vibration in the veins.

He will not be thankful for any part of this. There is no kindness in here, he will not feel any gratitude towards them.

Lenny ties Ziva. His hands are shaking, and McGee thinks he might have to revoke his idea of him.

He's seen her look, and understands what it means.

It takes them a while to wriggle free. It feels like night; the air's cold.

Ziva kicks the bonds into the corner, expression unreadable. McGee rubs his wrists. "What do we do now?"

Her eyes are half closed. "Do as he says."

He remembers his broken fingers. That price, for just a signal. No telling what it could cost them if they try and fail.

"So...we just sit here."

"We wait."

"For Gibbs?"

"Or for them to slip. Whichever comes first."

Whichever comes first.

He hopes Gibbs comes soon.

* * *

He's dozing. Skipping like a stone between sleep and waking.

She sleeps worse. Every now and then he is woken by her jerking upright.

Her breath is ragged in the small space.

* * *

Three days.

Now he is sure; Ziva cannot abide to be in this place. She's awake before him, back against the wall and feet planted against the door.  
Gently straining.

He distracts her with anything he can think of. Books, Mossad, complaints about Tony, Hebrew syntax. Gets her into arguments about guns he barely knows how to use.

It works, for a time. After they are distracted by stomach cramps from the food. And boredom.  
Nothing to look at in here.

Ziva draws a zig-zag in the dirt, rubbing out three of his marks. "How would you suggest I crown?"

"Here." He draws a cross through the point.

Checkers in dust.

She smirks, rubbing out his pieces with the pad of her thumb. "Your punishment." In her other hand is half an energy bar. The only food they've been given.

He grimaces, takes a tiny bite. It slides around his mouth, and his throat recoils at its oiliness.

"This is disgusting."

"So is my view." She wrinkles her nose at his open mouth.

He swallows. "Yeah? Well, I'm still winning."

"By one!"

They squabble, battle like there's more than their taste buds at stake.

Outside the walls, there is silence.

Later, Screamer takes him to the buckets. His hands are in front of him, the cloth seemingly still tied. They have perfected a way to make it seem tight, but slips off when they are alone in the room.  
After he goes, Screamer notices. He ties him again, then cuffs him roughly across the shoulders.

McGee wonders why he's not even bothered by it anymore.

As he is led back, he speaks. "When do you let us go?"

Those eyes never flicker. "When He decides the time is right."

"...And when will that be?"

He just laughs.

Another day ends.

* * *

Sometime during the night, he wakes with his face surrounded by swirling hair.

He shifts, groggy, realises his arm lies across her stomach. There's a funny pain in his chest he tries to move away.

He feels her sigh, looks down.

Her hand grips his shirt.

* * *

It's on day four they run out of things to talk about. Run out of the desire to keep active, alert. He falls instead into a listless doze, on his back and staring.  
The light is fizzing above his head. Blinking at him rapidly.

"They're not coming," he says to it.

Her bare feet twitch. He brings his chin to his chest, looks across to meet her eyes.

"They will."

She's rubbing the broken off heel of her shoe against the stone wall, slowly scratching it away. The point is looking more and more deadly. For once she is calm, collected. "I thought you were an optimist, McGee."

"I thought you were supposed to be trained to get us out of here."

He sighs inside. That didn't mean to slip past his teeth, but he hates this stasis. They've been trying so hard not to snap at each other.

She laughs. One of the deep-throated chuckles that he thinks she made at Mossad, because there's danger in those noises.

"Sorry."

"Do not be, McGee."

She goes quiet.

"You are right. I should know. I've read about these, studied them, been trained for them. But it is all from the wrong side, so everything I think of I know they must have anticipated." Her eyes darken. "All I need is one mistake."

"They can't be that professional. Goodwill between them and Israel would make them seem more sympathetic. People would want the government to give in."

She tests the heel against her finger. "I do not think that is what he wishes to get out of this."

"Screamer?"

"Cabbie. He enjoys this too much." She coughs. She's been coughing for days, and now it's sounding raw and thick.

"Water?"

She nods, coughs again. He reaches back past his head, and when he lifts the bottle it crinkles in his hand. Not much left.

He hands it to her, and she finishes in one gulp. Even so, she coughs again, covering her mouth with one of his socks.

He's sure when he thinks of this later he'll find it disgusting. But he's been peeing in a bucket for three days, so right now he just thinks it could be worse.

Shouldn't have thought that.

* * *

She snaps.

Fifth day.

She's been taken to the buckets, and he's edgy. Doesn't like being alone, and where he can't see her.

Outside, he hears a yelp. Lenny. Splintering wood.

He jerks up, presses against the door. He's never been so surprised when it creaks open.

It's too dark, he can barely see. A thud, a flash of hair. He doesn't think. Lunges, heart boiling over.

Noises, he can't see--

_Gun!_

His hands jerk on their own accord, grab for it--

A bear hug, metal bands snapped across his chest. He slithers out like an eel.

There's a flash of Ziva. Blank faced, fists sinking deep into Screamer's stomach till his eyes pop.

He moves towards her.

Then a dark arc swirls at his face and the world shatters.

* * *

He can't remember what happens next. Someone's stamped down hard on this particular stream of memory, broken glass to tear away at the rest of him.

A hard toe digging into his neck. There is tackiness in his throat.

Fade.

Kneeling.

Agony is not the word. This pain started like warmth, inching along his shoulders and knees until he is bent before each crashing wave of fire. It breaks him across the spine until surely his back must snap.

By the end he's sobbing quietly. Ziva's head is bowed, her eyes are shut tight and she sucks the air in like water.

Fade.

"You must be taught not to do this again."

A heel gets him in the ribs, and tips him gently to one side.

Those dark eyes, staring down. "You need to learn obedience."

He remembers this last. The feeling of stone, the swirl of dust beneath his cheek.

Ziva shuts her eyes.

Then there is nothing. For the longest time.

* * *

The light is flickering.

An eye judders open, watches it. Looks like it won't hold out much longer.

Beside his head, his watch looks at him with a broken face.

"Zi…" Dirt has crevassed itself in his mouth. Dust in his breath, his mouth like a desert.

Scrambling, then warm breath on his face. A hand across the burning of his head. "McGee. Can you hear?

His head twitches. Nails inside. "Wh…"

She flickers twice before him, peering into first one eye, then the other. "Pupils equal. That is good." She pats his cheek gently. He wonders if she knows her hands are trembling.

His eyes open. Blinks out the dry blood. "How long have I been out?"

"At least a day." Her arm slips underneath his back, pulling him upright. He groans as blood sloshes around his head. His teeth feel like they're covered with moss, there's a jackhammer between his eyes and his muscles are knots.

But he is awake. He's alive.

She turns away, grips a fistful of cloth. Fumbles to open the water bottle with swollen fingers.

That's when he sees. Blood, and bruises. The slice of face he sees it stretched tight like a balloon.

…_.Her neck…._

There's a shiver through him. "What happened?"

She stops. The hand wrapped around the water bottle is suddenly rigid.

"What?"

"Your face…"

"You…" Something flickers across her face. "You do not remember."

Remember?

He doesn't.

Just that swirl and the shining dark eyes.

"No."

She's not quite facing him. Her eyes shut for just a moment. _"Ba'ruch Ha'shem."_

He doesn't understand. "What?"

She is moving again, tipping water over a shred of cloth to dampen it. "It is nothing."

She doesn't fool him.

He wants to tell her so, to grab her by the shoulders and somehow shake it out of her, because that wide-eyed numbness scares him more than anything. But sparks shoot behind his corneas and he breathes hard to keep conscious.

She's there, kneeling beside him and her face creased. The black tide washes in and he shuts his eyes.

"I'm so sorry." He hears her voice crack. "This is my fault."

He shakes his head carefully. Blood crashes inside. "You didn't know what…" Black flares, and he takes a breath. "Didn't know what was going to happen."

He feels the wet cloth across his forehead, and his eyes twitch.

Her voice is soft, almost to herself. "You should not offer forgiveness so easily." Something about the way she says it makes him drag his eyelids up.

She's crying.

Inside his chest there is a sudden flicker.

"Ziva?"

She never did answer him.


	6. Chapter Five: McGee

**_- Chapter Five -_**

* * *

He slips in and out, for a time. There is no longer any way of knowing how long; hours or days, who can say? It gets hot and cold at uneven times, and he drifts in the between spaces.

She covers him with his coat, murmurs to him in the moments when he is aware.

Mostly, they are silent.

* * *

It's cold when he again rises to consciousness.

He manages to sit upright, though he feels like he's going to be sick when he does; the world jerks a little and he has to shut his eyes.  
His foot knocks into an empty bucket; one of the men outside must have left it so they wouldn't have to come in so often. The idea of it makes his stomach twist.

Ziva is half dozing, but smiles at him. "How are you feeling?"

"Not too bad."

A lie, but there's nothing either of them can do.

He sips some water, sloshes it around his gums to try and get rid of the taste of grit. He contemplates whether to spit or swallow, choosing conservation.

Ziva's head has drooped, and her eyes are closed. Sweat gleams along her skin.

He lies back down.

The light is barely hanging on. It hisses, tossing out fading haloes of light.

_Rings of light upon the ceiling overhead._

"An atmosphere of Juliet's tomb." He murmurs it quietly to himself.

Nevertheless, she twitches at the sounds. Her lips purse slightly. "Prufrock."

"You've read it?"

That deep laugh. "Do you dare disturb the universe, McGee?"

No.

He could never dare.

Silence. The light dies slowly above them.

"Do you think this will be our tomb, McGee?" Her voice is quiet.

He thinks about it. "No."

She shifts a little. "Think we will pull through?"

"No. They'll probably want to kill us where they can film it."

"Ah. Logical."

Quiet.

There's an odd twinge in his side. He looks down, pulls up his shirt. There's an oozing burn the size of a quarter.

_What…_

Ziva twitches, muttering. "Why is it so hot?"

His head turns.

Red blotches have swirled on her cheeks. She starts unbuttoning her coat.

"Ziva…"

When she drags it off, he sees her shirt is sopping, stuck to her skin. It's when she starts fumbling for the buttons that he jerks upright.

"Hey hey hey, Ziva!"

She doesn't stop, and he grabs her hands.

She looks at him, through him and away. Her eyes glisten around the edges.

"I do not… feel right."

It is odd, the way she says it. Very calm, like each word has a tight band of control.

He touches her forehead, and she burns his hand.

He lies her down, tries to make her drink the rest of the water. She gets through half the bottle before the blood washes from her face. At the forward curl, he grabs the bucket.

Just in time.

There's nothing in her to vomit up, but she retches anyway.

He has to shut his eyes. Just the sound is enough to make his own stomach quiver. Through the arm that holds her upright he can feel the dry heaves.

She shivers, cheeks wet.

"You okay?" He's scared. More than anytime here. She's trembling against him.

"I'll call them—"

"No." Harsh, like a wood rasp. Her fingers are digging into his bicep. "They won't."

"But—"

"Please, McGee." She's looking at him with those eyes, and he can't say no.

So he doesn't.

* * *

If he still seeks to be optimistic (and he's fairly sure he doesn't), he could say her fever benefits them both. He freezes, she burns, so together they must reach some equilibrium.

The two of them are wedged together in the tiny space. Her cheek is pillowed by his clavicle, uneven breath twisting like smoke across his neck. Someone's lit a fire inside her, because she burns him even through cloth. His arm is around her limply; some part of him is very aware of who he is holding.

The other part doesn't care. It's too damn cold and there's just no room.

Though all things considered, he knows he shouldn't find it so distracting.

He tries to sleep, and she is a state on unconsciousness he hopes is natural.

Yells outside, the crinkle of breaking glass.

He twitches, and there's a flutter deep down.

Mutterings. They fade slowly, and his muscles relax.  
He must admit, his hopes weren't high.

They lost their chance to get away. Now they just have to wait.  
Patience. The illusion of control.

She coughs, a dull drumbeat against his chest. He looks down, sees her hair black and sticky against her skin.

His thumb traces timidly across the faded bruise on her forehead, sweeps her damp hair behind her ear.

How he aches.

* * *

They're both getting tired now.

For a lot of the time they doze. This place is without time, so when doesn't matter. They haven't eaten for a while, and the water's dwindling.

Sleep isn't much of an escape, but it is enough.

The light twitches on and off. He yearns for the short moments of dark. She is dizzy, shivers through the fever and throws up air.

They've given up with worrying about the little things. This is boiling down to a matter of economics, what they're willing to keep and what they can loose.

Privacy. Health. Cleanliness.

Gone, gone, gone.

So what's left?

There's them. They're alive, they're not entirely broken.

It'll have to be enough.

But for all these thoughts, McGee can't help but wonder.

They're still here, and no-one has come.

How can they be left like this?

* * *

He wakes. Or rather, is temporarily freed from stupor.

She cannot breathe lying flat anymore. She's leaning against the wall, hand flat on the ground to keep her steady.

"How are you feeling?"

Nothing.

His eyes open fully, take her in.

Hers are half closed, but she is awake. She's got a look of concentration to her face, like each echoing breath takes all effort. At the corner of her mouth there's a downturned smear. He thinks it's a dirty fingerprint until he sees the colour.

"Ziva?"

She doesn't answer.

There's a sudden moment where feeling drops out and a yawning nothing roars inside.

Sitting up, he says her name again. Her head nods a little, drops.

He touches her cheek, to feel skin like hot metal. It must be the cold of his hand, because her eyes open. Black and burning.

She opens her hands, palms up.

There is red in her hand. Dark as mahogany and curled like a smile.


	7. Chapter Six: Lenny

_**- Chapter Six -

* * *

**_

On the seventh day, it is quiet. Subdued. You are more aware of the earth around you, and wonder if the tree roots can get through concrete.

Hassam shows you his bruises and the cuts along his face, left by the woman. He tells you about the sharpened shoe heel and the watch gears, and there is admiration in his tone.

It has been a week. They called in the morning, enquired politely over the hostages. Zurich says they are fine, and they tell him his demands are being put into motion.  
A fair exchange of lies. The two of them are not fine, and of the three demands you made, none have been fulfilled.

Except one. Supplies have started to filter in to Gaza.

Hassam nods. That was the only one he contributed to this. Zurich is angry, because he feels his is the most simple.

Just words, he says.

Hassam shakes his head. Israel will never say they do not belong in their country. Zurich is a generation late to even think they might.

You clean up the mess left by the fight as they talk quietly. You prick your hand on something, pick up the sharpened shoe heel. There's blood on the end.

You think maybe Zurich should have thought this through better.  
But for all his mistakes, he is very thorough in his correction of them.

When you take the woman the left side of her face is swollen, with both eyebrows split open and still oozing faintly. Her muscles have seized up and she limps badly. She refuses to use the bucket; her voice is cracking and tight. There are red bands around her throat the width of fingers.

You don't make her. Watching her bowed head, you feel something close to pity.

You find the medical kit, wipe it with one hand (dust gets everywhere down here) and get the clean wipes.  
Her hands are tied, and you won't trust her that much, so you clean the wounds yourself. She doesn't move, only closes her eyes.

She does not thank you.

As you lead her back, Zurich says something to her in English, his tone gentle. Her head turns away, and she does not answer.

He looks to you, and tells you not to go near them for the next few days, as they need time to think over what they've done. You nod, feeling the bicep under your fingers tighten.

When you open the door, the man is sprawled on the floor; you cannot tell if he is living or dead. At the last second you give her a bucket, in case she decides she needs to go. It's a good thing you do, because twelve hours later her temperature rises and she starts throwing up.

From the radio, there is only silence.

* * *

Nine Days.

It reeks of people, of filth, of humanity cramped in the dark and scared out of its wits.

Zurich is looking haggard; he doesn't understand. This should have worked. Hassam paces; he was never built to wait so long.

No signs. A helicopter hasn't passed over in days.

Your eyes ache from watching computer screens, searching for coverage. You haven't been mentioned for three days, and Zurich's jaw creaks when you tell him.

He thinks they must be up to something.

Twelve hours ago, you ran out of food.  
Is that all? Feels longer.

Zurich told you to stop taking it to them days before, and Hassam was too distracted to notice. Lucky for you, so it lasted longer than it should. But it's gone now; time is a weight across your shoulders.

Much longer for them.

You frown. Last time you took them water…

You can't remember. As a correlation, they must need it.

When you open the door, they are sleeping, or unconscious. As far as you can tell, there is no difference.

They are not dead, that's what is important.

The man is on his back, knees curling to the side so his body is like a hook. Mouth open, lips cracked. There is hair on his face, so he looks wild. His shirt is stained and wrinkled and ripped, and his torn jacket is acting as a pillow. He is no longer young and polished.

The woman's head is on his stomach; the bruise on her cheek has purpled with touches of livid green. Her jacket is over them both.

They look sick.

Her eye opens, rolls and looks at you.

You are frozen by that stare.

Tunnel into the universe. Black hole in the world.

A shudder runs through her. The eye rolls up; it's lid half closes. Then shuts.  
You put the water down, step away.

They don't move.

* * *

It's night outside. You know because the cameras tell you, and because of the cold.

Can't have the heater on. Not enough power.

Another message. Troops are being moved away from the border, but still the block remains.

Zurich smashes a computer. Hassam laughs, and Zurich eyes bulge. You can see his throat working.

"How can they care this little about their people?" he rages at Hassam.

Hassam shrugs. "I think you overestimated how much Mossad would care for its daughter."

"What of the American? Surely…"

Hassam shrugs again.

Zurich seems lost.

So does the American. The first days he seemed to be waiting for something.  
Whatever the something was, it hasn't come. His look of hope has faded.

* * *

Two hundred and forty hours.

Ten days.

Night, when the knocking comes.

Zurich harrumphs and rolls his back to you, and Hassam doesn't stir. You get up and go to them.

The room is tiny. You never really thought about it, never really looked at it; Zurich told you both to keep contact to the barest minimum.

Whatever the case, they've been in here too long; it makes your eyes water. God, the smell!

Something's wrong. The man is on his knees. He looks down at the woman, then back at you.

You blink at her, kneel down. Eyes closed, mouth open and gasping for air. Her skin is blotched red and she radiates heat.

You and he both suddenly share the thought that if he wanted to escape, now is the time. You turn to regard him, but he just gives an aggravated headshake. He's not stupid, he can't win, and he won't leave her alone with you.

You put a palm to her forehead, then feel the pulse on her neck. The skin is too hot in both places, and her heartbeat's much too fast.

"She is sick." He says it slowly in American, then makes a gabbled attempt in Arabic.

You nod, then bend down to press your ear against her chest. He jerks slightly, his fear for her fighting with the desire to shove you away.

Her breathing sounds hollow, rattling. There's a crackling sound, like bacon sizzling. A cough rattles through her like a wave; Congested, thick, and she spasms from pain.

You swallow, move away. "Cough…blood?"

His brow wrinkles, then he understands. He nods.

"Medicine. She needs it." His hands are clenched. He's not bargaining.

You shake your head.

"Why?" He reverts to American, says more, but you don't understand. He's speaking too fast. You try and find the words, to say you have medicine but it's wrong, bandages won't help her.

No words.

"Please."

He's begging you. He's clasping your arm, and you wonder if he's noticed how desperate his voice is. But also a burning in there, that makes his fingers bruise you.

Zurich did not break them, you think vaguely. How disappointed he'll be.

The man is watching you, and you see it dawn on him.  
You're his last hope, and you can do nothing.

Or…

You frown.

Leave her outside the house. Let the helicopters take her. She will live, and you will still have a hostage.

You wake Hassam. He growls at you, until you tell him. He listens, still lying down, but by the end he's standing and moving towards the cupboard door.

The man won't let him near her. Hassam accepts this, which surprises you. He crouches down to look, at her colour and her shivering, then stands. He moves away, but as he does the man says something. Hassam pauses to listen, then shuts the door.

"What—?"

"He says she is dying."

"What do you think?'

Hassam says nothing. He sits back on his mattress, thinks. You watch him, but then he catches you and his eyebrows snap together. You look away, stare at the floor.

He gets up, slides into the room with the computers.

* * *

Zurich nurses a gash on the heel of his hand. It's beginning to pucker with infection.

His lip curls.

"No."

* * *

Zurich misunderstood then, the look Hassam gave her. Because on your watch, while Zurich sleeps, you hear noises.

You turn and look through the curtain. Hassam has the blankets that covered the boxes of supplies, vanishing into the dark. You hear the cupboard click open.

Grass twitches on the screen, bleached to white from the lights. Darkness behind, then the picket fence of tree trunks.

You think you see marching feet, but when you turn back it's gone.

Ghosts on the edge of your vision.

When Hassam comes back, his hands are empty.

You turn to look back at the monitor, then freeze.

Zurich is curled on the mattress, eyes open and dark like rock pools.  
He's watching Hassam.

* * *

The hours are tense. The sun travels over and you listen to the silence from behind the cupboard door. Hassam checks them, and when he comes back says the woman does not know where she is, and calls him strange names. The man is trying all sorts of bargaining, but it will come to nothing.

Zurich will not yield.

* * *

Night. Day eleven.

Day, night. All confused.

You jerk awake

Zurich's eyes are closed. Hassam is sleeping.

If the men outside knew, you would be already dead. It's a sign of some sort.

You can hear them talking. You press your ear against the wall; for if you listen hard, surely the tones will tell you enough to understand.

"Ziva."

"…"

"Ziva."

"What….where are we?"

"We're still here."

"Oh." Silence. "What time is it?"

"I don't know. Here."

"No, you need it."

"Ziva, you're too cold."

"What are you doing…"

"Keep still, ok?"

"Oh."

…

"What time is it?"

Silence. The woman coughs wretchedly, and in your head you watch her turn blue.

You can't understand what the words mean. You try to remember the sounds, but they fall away like water.

"McGee, don't be like that."

"Sorry, I can't help it."

"We will be alright."

"You said your father wouldn't..."

"Gibbs will. He doesn't care about Israel."

"Does he even know where we are? Does anyone? No-one's come."

"I don't know. I'm sorry. This is not your fight."

"It's not yours, either."

He says something else too, but it's soft.

"What?"

"I'm sorry you got caught with me."

"I am not. Rather you than anyone."

"Tony would have done something."

"Tony would have gotten himself shot by now. I am glad I am here with you, McGee."

…

…

"Ziva?"

Silence.

"Ziva?"

"Mmm?"

"Sorry."

"Just checking?"

He laughs. Worried, sad, terrible laugh.

Her voice is quiet. "I am not going anywhere."

They fall quiet after that. When you open the door to check on them, they are motionless, and the woman's eye doesn't open.

* * *

On the dawn of the thirteenth day, Hassam is shot dead.


	8. Chapter Seven: McGee

_A/N - Happy Birthday, ChEmMiE. :) _

* * *

**_ - Chapter Seven -

* * *

_**

There's blood in her hand.

She blinks at him slowly, panting breath echoing in the silence. He looks at her, at the dark red on her palm. _Not more, I can't handle more…_

She must have heard him, because it's about then that she crumples, folds up on herself.

"Ziva. Ziva!" His fingers smear dirt on her cheeks, along her hairline. She doesn't stir at the touch.

_Wake up, don't do this._

His silent begging is for nothing. As heat crackles along her skin, he turns and raises his fist to the door.  
His fingers are numb by the time he hears the lock slide across.

* * *

Head shaking, low voices.

They leave him with a moth-eaten blanket and no promises.

* * *

Her fever rises. Sweat beads across her skin and her breath has torn edges.

Cranky, claustrophobic Ziva has nothing on delirious, terrified Ziva. Heat rolls off her and she starts babbling. He hears fragments of English, French, Arabic and a dozen other languages but it all smears together in the end.

He hides the bits of broken glass, tries to keep her calm. Cold sweat runs down him and he knows he's scared to be trapped with her.  
He has absolutely no doubt of what she's capable off.

It goes on for hours; very soon they are exhausted. But the fever drives her on, to the point where she starts kicking at the door. Under the juddering of metal, he hears angry voices.

He grabs her arms, drags her away. He's shocked to find that even though she's struggling, he can hold her still. If he thought he was scared before, he knew nothing.

She slumps into him, beyond exhausted and defeated by the weak grip of his arms. She gasps for breath that never seems to reach her lungs.

* * *

Time passes.  
Perhaps. This existence is merely a progression of one moment into another, with no sign that the previous existed or this precursors another.

This moment is cold. He shivers and curls into himself to retain body heat. The light buzzes. She whispers to herself, eyelids flickering and only whites showing.

"Ziva."  
Her head twitches towards him.

He grips her hand gently. "Squeeze my fingers if you can hear me."

Her palm is damp. After a moment her fingers flex around his.

Good enough.

He sort of nods, pulling his hand away to cradle his head. Pain grinds down on him, deep inside his skull, and he feels close to throwing up. He probably would have, but there's been no food for a while. A knife wriggles in his stomach, and insects gnaw on his skin; they spread from the blanket to tastier meat. He swats them away, or pinches them between his fingers till they pop with dull satisfaction.

There's no more water in their last bottle. Not even drops under the plastic ring; his aching tongue sought them out hours ago.

So he sits, drifts away. Her temperature fluctuates; once she got so cold he had to wrap her with the blanket. She was coherent, for a while. Then her skin burned again and she faded with it.

He sits in lonely silence, dozes.

Every now and then the door creaks open. Screamer stares down at them.  
He's checking to see if she's still alive.

The third time, Ziva's eyes open, focus unsteadily on the shadow in the doorway.

"Ari?"

Screamer looks at McGee, who can't find the energy to even shake his head.

He's tried everything he can think of. Begging, bargaining. Tried to think of any way he can to get them out.  
He's run out of ideas. So he stares up blankly, and the man waits.

They watch each other. Screamer loses interest first, eyes falling. He shuts the door.

The light is flickering.

* * *

He sleeps, sometimes. Lenny leaves a water bottle, and McGee can tell it's the last one they're going to get. He's so tempted to drink it all himself; she'd never know. But he drinks half, then twists the cap on as hard as he can. He doesn't know if he can trust himself later.

There's a smell hovering in the air. It's rank and dark and like decay. It comes from them both.

Ziva is burning, but it's starting to be more cold then hot. He's not sure what that means, but she is more awake than she was before.  
Once, she is lucid. She looks at him and knows who he is.

"I'm sorry, Tim."

"It's okay."

And that's all he can manage.

* * *

She grows quiet. Falls into a shallow doze, head against his hand. Her lips are the colour of rust.

McGee does not feel well.

He feels light-headed, woozy. He keeps thinking odd things, drifting, before suddenly realising he has no idea how he got there. Food blinks into thoughts like a roadblock, but he can't stop himself.  
His intestines cramp viciously, sending cold sweat across his skin. He curls, gasping quietly.

The light flickers.

Fingers brush his wrist. He flinches.

"McGee."

He looks down, fist deep in his stomach. Ziva blinks back slowly.

"Hey." He tries to smile. Must look awful, like a dog bearing it's teeth.

Her arm lifts; fingers brush his cheek, scratching across the bruised skin and half-hearted stubble he hadn't realised was there. "You're growing a beard," she says. Smiles. It looks lopsided, her eyes aren't right.

He rubs his cheek. Definite hair. "A couple more days and I'll look like Michael Finnegan."

She frowns, then her eyes go dull. The thought of her falling again makes him speak.

"What're you going to do when we get back?"

"What?"

"When we get out." He almost forgets it sometimes; but they will get out. He's decided if he holds onto that, the loss of everything else will be bearable.

Ziva seems to waver.

"I'm going to brush my teeth for an hour." He smiles a little, mostly to himself.

She considers. "Eat a whole bucket of fried chicken."

He groans slightly at the thought of food. "Do you even like fried chicken?"

She looks puzzled. "No."

He almost laughs.

Quiet. He drifts in shadow and thinks of nothing.

"What do you think they're doing?"

"Hmm?" His head shifts slightly. He thinks about opening his eyes. Too much energy.

"Gibbs. Tony, Abby…"

"Not sure. Depends on the time." He feels his watch on his wrist. The rest of the world no doubt surges ahead, but they've sunk like a stone.

"Let's say it is nine in the morning."

"If there's a case, they'll already be out in the field. Tony'll be snapping pictures, doing rough sketches."

He sees it in his head, somehow very clear.

"Ducky and Palmer will come late. They always get lost when Palmer's out of D.C. Ducky'll come out, complain to Gibbs. Tony will say something snide to Palmer, Gibbs will hit him upside the head. Then Ducky will load up the body, after telling Gibbs the history of Honey Bee cultivation. Tony'll be gathering up evidence to send to Abby… putting the interesting things first because that's…"

He falters. He is suddenly without breath, shivering. Ziva's eyes are open, and he sees it in her.

_This is what it will be like, when you are gone._

Her fingers touch his, and he grips her hand.

No words pass between them.

The light is flickering.

* * *

_He's running._

_He's aching all over, tears streaking from his eyes in pain. He can hear the feet behind him, slow steps. However fast he runs, they are always there._

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

_Ducky watches him with interest, a hacksaw hanging from his fingers. "Looks like you're a bit early, my boy. I'll just finish up here." McGee tries to tell him there's someone following, but Ducky waves him away.  
The body on the table is decomposed to brown bones and stretched skin. It wears Ziva's hair._

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

_He runs._

_He can hear whispering, about him. Abby's low voice conspires with them, then he hears a low growling that shakes through him.  
Runs past Tony. He's singing to a dog and wearing a hat with earflaps._

"There was an old man called Michael Finnegan

He grew fat and then grew thin again.

Then he died and had to begin again.

Poor old Michael Finnegan, begin again…"

_He finds himself beside the sliding glass doors where he first met Jethro the dog. There's a gun in his hand, and again he hesitates when the dog launches itself at his midrift.  
This time the teeth sink in deep, deep, and he screams._

_Long teeth gnaw beneath his ribs, and he feels blood sinking into his clothes._

_Jethro runs off with his organs, red and rubbery like sausages, leaving a dark trail in his wake. McGee looks down at the cavity beneath his ribcage, blood oozing from his mouth._

_And those feet are still coming._

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

_He can't move._

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

_He can't move!_

* * *

He jerks.

Sucks in a breath.

The knife in his stomach twists slowly, and tells him he still lives. His sweat has turned the dirt to mud, but he's cold, so cold. He fades out to nothing in the extremities.

He unpeels his eyes, and wonders because he's gone blind.  
The light has finally died. They are in the darkness of space, black holes. He hadn't really realised until now, but there is no gap under the door.

There is no light at all.

"Ziva?"

No reply.

He reaches out, hand falling on what might be her shoulder. Her skin is cooling.

She shifts, and he pulls back. "What…"

"Light's burnt out."

"Oh."

Quiet. Even from here, he can hear the rattling in her chest.

It hurts to move. His stomach aches, the pressure in his head is almost too much. He shudders and wishes for oblivion. He can't bear this anymore.

He can hear her moving, blindly. The blanket hits him across the shoulder and stomach, he hears her thud beside him. He resettles the blanket across them better.

It's not exactly reasons of better heat containment that he shifts closer, wraps an arm around her. And he supposes it's not because of lack of space that she presses against him, knees gently bumping against his.

Almost warmth.

Even with the blanket, his bones ache. Numbness is spreading, and it runs so deep he's not sure it will go away.

"Ziva?" It comes out hoarse.

She moves to show she is listening.

He opens his eyes, though the movement could be an illusion. Both states are dark. "I don't want to die here."

He doesn't. He didn't reply to that email his parent sent the morning they were taken. He didn't get to say goodbye to them, or Sarah. What were they going to do with all of his stuff? All these things they suddenly have to take care of, he has burdened them with.

All these things he forgot to do and are now beyond reach.

His throat constricts too tight, his chest is clenched. When he breathes it's awful and shuddering.

She moves under his arm. Her thumb brushes his cheek, scratching against the stubble and the tears he hadn't even realised he was letting out. He shuts his eyes, swallows.

"I'm sorry, McGee."

He crumbles into the black. Fades away piece by piece into oblivion, his arm around her and her fingers against his wet cheek.

Distantly, through the void, he thinks he can hear humming. He listens, almost apart from the world. He doesn't recognise the tune but he hears the sense of loss in it, and feels sad when she goes quiet.

He strokes her back, feels distantly the dampness she's leaving on his shirt.

He feels they are like the bodies in the pits, like during the plague in London. The two of them alone, crushed together in the darkness.


	9. Chapter Eight: Tony

**_- Chapter Eight -

* * *

_**

_Weak._

_Cowards._

_They do not approach. They do not bargain, they do not care. How can such people have power, to throw away their own without even a twitch? Where father's do not care for daughters? Families for sons?_

_Is this the world you wanted?_

* * *

In the next two days, there is nothing.

A helicopter drops a spray of paralytic drug. Birds fall from the sky, but it doesn't seep through the timbers.

Satellite images from weeks before shows disturbed earth where the mines *might* be.  
No volunteers to follow it.

The agent in charge, Alan, is replaced by a new man called MacArthur. He ups the number of snipers and tells them to shoot anything that moves in the top story.

Another letter is sent to the media, and there's enough fanfare that Tony suspects even underground Ziva and McGee would have heard about it. Neither would appreciate the fact that now close to a million people know more about their personal lives than Tony did a week ago.

In the mornings he used to read the paper; he learnt quickly it wasn't a good idea. It only took them two days to find out McGee's pseudonym, and that damn book. On day five he found a picture of Kate on page three, with a caption beneath stating there were some relation between her murderer and Agent David. Someone out there drew the line in the giant connect-the-dots and no doubt feels well pleased.

It was about then he stopped reading; too many people expressing opinions about things they don't understand, digging up old bones. So now in the mornings he just sits, reads about every hostage situation that's ever taken place.

Most lasted for hours or a day at most; some lasted for months.  
McGee and Ziva have fallen in the doldrums of the middle ground.

Gibbs watches him, and says nothing.

On the sixth day, Tony looks up.

"You know when the American embassy was taken over by militants in Iran in 1979, they were there for 444 days."

"But they all made it out," Gibbs replies.

The afternoons are spent in the woods, watching the FBI try to incapacitate men in a concrete block six feet underground. The problem is that all the traditional tactics for ending a standoff involve either negotiation or access to the house. Both routes have been closed.

They have to get creative.

Today they try to shoot out the windows to let in tear gas. A closer look inside shows that it's probably a null move. The floor is solid brick and little gas will get through.

They watch, and Gibbs grinds his teeth because he has no say on what goes on in this.

And the more Tony thinks about it, the more he thinks he knows why.

* * *

"You asked them not to let Gibbs lead the case."

Jenny considers him across her desk, weighs the statement. "Do you hate me for it?"

He has to think about it. She sighs.

"Jethro… he doesn't believe in diplomacy."

"Is that the polite way of putting it?"

"You know him as well as I do, Tony. The way Gibbs would think to get them out will get Tim and Ziva killed."

First time anyone's said the word. Funny, it doesn't cut at all, and it worries him. "It's a bad idea, Madame Director."

Bad idea, because they both know that eventually Gibbs _will_ find a way.

Her eyelids lower. "Duly noted, Agent DiNozzo. You should get some rest."

As he leaves, he flicks away the last comment. No one around here's slept properly and days, least of all her. He wonders if it is the choice to remove Gibbs's teeth that did it.

* * *

"He's repeating rhetoric. It's got no meaning, it's... recycled ideals. A lot of these phrases come from other speeches. This line here, comes from Al Asqa." Ducky's bent over a copy of the letter. Gibbs seems to be restraining himself from looking impatient.

(He's failing.)

Tony doesn't like where this is going. "So he's not a terrorist."

"Oh, he is. Just not the kind he wants us to think he is." Ducky sits down heavily. He is wearing the expression everyone has lately. Exhaustion and muted worry.

Gibbs reads through it again. "He's trying to make people angry. Scare us into doing something."

"Yes. But see, he's enraged. He rants, goes off topic, talks about irrelevances. It's fracturing. The first letters were tightly scripted. Propaganda at it's best." He shakes his head. "This is a mess."

"You think we're getting somewhere?"

Ducky turns the letter around. "We've certainly delayed him. He's run off script."

"Now what?"

"Now is the dangerous time. If he hasn't got a plan, he could do anything. This is not a rational man, Jethro."

Gibbs looks at the letters again. There's an expression on his face Tony doesn't like. "Thanks, Duck." When he leaves, he's already forgotten them.

Ducky looks after him, face drawn. "Any news on Ziva and Timothy?"

"They say they're fine." He picks at a scab on his left knuckle. "Bored was the word they used."

"That's good, at least."

"Gibbs thinks they're lying."

"Do you?"

Tony hesitates.

There's an image in his head. Of last night, going down to update Abby. Finding her curled by the mass spectrometer, head in one hand and fist pressed into her stomach. She is silent, but the sobs rumble through her.

"Abby, what…"

"I don't know. I have this really bad feeling…" She touches her fingers to her ribcage.

He hugs her, holds her upright. Shudders run across her in waves. The skin pressed against his throat is clammy and cold.

Tony knows he should think to himself it's just the stress. The not eating properly. The not sleeping. A culmination of many things to make it seem like she's in pain. But there's something in the way she twitches, like she's being struck. In the words she mutters into his shoulder. Either way, when he tries to think it his brain tells him he lies.

Ducky's seen the expression on his face.

"God help them," he says.

* * *

A week.

Abby brings canine Jethro up to the bullpen; Tony suspects that with no McGee to cling to, she's found the next best thing. Poor dog was penned up in the real Jethro's yard, and he looks dejected.

(Who knew the mutt could miss McGee so much?)

Gibbs glowers with the sound down, peering over the bent shoulders of his missing two like they're nothing. He's watching the giant with the clumsy grip.

"How long has he been watching that?" Abby asks quietly.

"On and off for the past seven days."

"He's not going to get anything."

"Tell him that."

She makes a noise, deep in her throat. He glances at her. He can see she desperately wants to go over to Gibbs, tell him it'll be okay, but she equally knows he won't believe her.

"Shouldn't you two be working?"

"Yes, Boss."

They retreat, but in reality there is nothing for them to do. The FBI has stopped throwing them treats on the pretence they are actually relevant, that anything they do matters.

Abby's rolling something around her hand.

"What's that?"

She clutches it in a fist, almost guiltily, then shows him. "It's a key to McGee's place. I though we should go check everything was…as it should be."

He nods, then goes to his desk and ferrets out the key Ziva gave him, back when he was team leader, and he stood by Gibbs's desk.

* * *

Milk has curdled in Ziva's fridge, the bread has gone mouldy. There's a pile of recycling waiting by the door.

It feels _wrong_.

The entire place glares at him for the invasion. Hostility in the plaster of the walls. He takes the bread, the separated milk, the recycling, retreats with his eyes averted.

McGee's place is much the same, except there are agents by the door and a reporter tries to follow them up the stairs. Thom E Gemcity is a famous man, and this isn't helping in the slightest.

It's so clean it feels eerie. Jethro has to be persuaded to get off McGee's bed; Abby scolds him without feeling, voice tight.

It's a feeling of subtraction, more than anything.

His sister has been here; she was the frantic cleaner, and the place sparkles from her nervous energy. Tony wanders over to the typerwriter. There's a couple of pages next to it. Most of them are notes, things he can't be bothered comprehending.

Then—

_L. J. Tibbs never backed down. He never stood aside. McGregor used to admire it, but now he wasn't so sure. Sometimes he wondered _

Wondered what?

Tony would have liked to ask McGee what he thought, of Gibbs standing by now, rage breaking like water against a wall.

Perhaps he would have appreciated the irony.

* * *

When they close and lock the door to McGee's apartment, they feel lost.

There's a park the next block along. Tony folds down onto a bench. Abby lets Jethro off the leash. He doesn't stray far, sniffing distractedly.

There are a few people in the park, with dogs, or sitting on the grass. He watches them. He is not part of the world that can lie on the grass and walk dogs for real, without the pretence he and Abby have done it.

A woman eyes them from a nearby table. She's fingering something in her bag, and though he can't tell from this distance, he's pretty sure it's a tape recorder. She starts to get up, and Tony gives her a dirty look. He suspects it's more the way Jethro started to growl that made her hesitate and eventually walk away.

Abby sighs. Breath of air lost in the wind.

"I really need a Caf-Pow."

"If it'll make you feel better, I'll bring the machine down to your lab. We can mainline it into an artery."

"No. I told myself I'd have one as soon as they came back." She watches a beetle struggle over her shoe. "Didn't think it would take so long."

Tony says nothing. Neither did he.

One of the laws of the universe has been broken. Objects fall at constant rate, gas expands to fill empty space.

And Gibbs always thinks of something.

* * *

There's a camping ground not far from the house. The FBI turned it into HQ when MacArthur stepped up.

Abby looks uneasy as they drive through the checkpoints. "Tony, they've got a tank. Why would they need that?"

"Maybe he's overcompensating for something." It comes out half-hearted. He's too distracted; Gibbs told them both to come up to camp, and he feels sick with nervousness.

He can hear them arguing before they even open the door to the cabin.

"That's forty feet of dirt you want to dig through, Jethro. With a garden hose."

"It's not a garden hose. It's a…" He stops, shakes his head angrily. "It's all we've got."

Tony looks sidelong at Abby, who shakes her head a little. Whatever it is Gibbs has, no doubt he didn't stop long enough to find out how it actually works. He never was a details guy. He sees Abby eye the thing coiled on the desk between them.

"What is it?" he mutters.

"It a remote drill. I think it's used when they try and reach miners trapped underground."

Tony looks at it. The rather lethal looking head. It's only about his hand span across. The hole would be too small to fit McGee and Ziva through, in any case.

Then he gets it.

(They want to dig between the mines.)

MacArthur is still stubborn. "I'm not letting civilians onsite."

Gibbs hand slams down. Abby jumps. "Then what!?"

MacArthur thinks it over, slowly. Tony distrusts him implicitly, because he knows his goal are not the same as his. His prize is Zurich, alive or dead. Everything else if peripheral.

"They could talk to someone who was already on site. Someone with enough skill to listen to their instructions."

He glances sideways.

At Abby.

She goes white. "No, no."

"Ms. Scuito—"

"What if I blow up a mine?" She looks at Gibbs, terrified. "What if it goes off too close and I kill them?"

Gibbs puts a hand on her arm, steadies her. "There are other people."

MacArthur's grin is a little lopsided. "The army's job is to blow this stuff up, not avoid it." He shrugs a little. "We've got some tech guys out with the computers. I'm sure they can work it out."

Abby hesitates.

Tony sees Gibbs mouth tighten. MacArthur's read Abby quickly and well. She's scared to do it herself, but she's not letting anyone else near it. With barely a fight she's been twisted into it.

They both know what will happen should Abby fail.

* * *

He doesn't quite understand how it works. The flexible head, a few hundred feet of extension cord, and a buzzing tube attached to wires.

Abby's standing next to a hole that looks a bit too much like a grave. There's her and two other tech guys down their, but in practice tests it was clear Abby had the far steadier hand.

Gibbs mutters in her ear, squeezes her shoulder. She'd hug him, if her hands weren't full of dead machine. He tried to talk her out of it, tried to save her. Face white, she'd shaken her head every time.

Tony sidles up to her.

"You ever played minesweeper?"

"Yeah." She smiles a little. "Only top scorer."

He grips her hand, squeezes.

"Just like minesweeper."

* * *

Abby has reserves of concentration and patience that is beyond him, beyond even Gibbs. The drill emits a signal, and they overlay the map of the mines. She has long conversations with the man who should be controlling it, and the work becomes more exact.

It wasn't exactly built for subtly; it wasn't designed for this. It twists slowly through the field, wavering and uncertain.

Threading a needle by blowing on the string.

MacArthur was a good pick, much as Tony hates what he's done.

Out of all his choices, she has the most at stake, and she will not let herself fail.

* * *

Nine days.

The media has turned away, and Tony is thankful.

Abby is dozing on a bunk in the cabin, face against Gibbs's coat. She's left a tiny spot of drool on it. Gibbs won't mind, considering how hard it is to get her to sleep.

They've tunneled fifty yards across the minefield. Only sixty-three until they reach the concrete wall. That's when the hard part will start. They have to go slow, on the drills lowest setting. Sound travels too well underground.

Tony can't sleep. He watches the infrared, and the two tiny red balls he thinks are them. One of them started to glow for a while, but it's been fading in the last twelve hours or so.

Both of them are fading.

"Don't you dare." He mutters it vainly.

As if they hear, one of them twitches.

* * *

Abby stops the drill, shuts her eyes.

They've reached the concrete wall, almost 270 hours after they got the first video.

There's no cheering, no congratulations. Gibbs and Tony help her out of the hole in silence, take her back to the cabin.

"What now?"

Abby can barely keep her eyes open. "Once they get through, they were going to pump something in. Capsicum spray, I dunno…"

Her head droops. Gibbs covers her with his jacket, kisses her on the forehead.

"You did good, Abs."

(Hold on. We're so close.)

* * *

There is a shadow moving on the top story.

They watch on the screen in the cabin.

Male, from the movement. Too big to be McGee.  
Or Zurich.

Discussion. To kill, or not to kill?

To not would suggest they were up to something. Make them suspicious anyway.  
And there it no better distraction than this.

MacArthur gives the all clear. The window disintegrates, and on the footage there is a faint red spray.

A red spot fades.

Gibbs looks as though he is almost in pain. There's a fist ground into his stomach.

(gut, what's wrong with it?)

Abby goes white. "Something bad's gonna happen."

"Aside from what's happening already?"

It's too tense. Tony paces, but he's got nowhere to go. Gibbs is calling McGee's family, updating them. Tony wonders if he should call Ziva's father, but can't decide whether it's worth the complication. Abby's got her head in her hands.

"Gibbs."

Tony and Abby look around. Agent Fornell is looking pale. There's a laptop in his hand.

Gibbs hasn't heard.

Doesn't matter. Tony knows.

"Boss…"

"What?"

Uploaded video. Hits in the thousands.

The screen was showing that room again. Black plastic on the walls.

And Ziva on her knees, fighting to gaze at the camera.

* * *

There is silence. Utter quiet that clamps down and wrenches the breath away.

Ziva's hands are bound before her. Kneeling by his feet, she looks too still. Her head lifts, and Tony thinks he might be sick.

(God, that's so much blood.  
Where's McGee? Is he…)

"_We have given you ten days, and you have not complied! No communications. Nothing!"_

He hits her across the head. Ziva drops onto her palms, and stays down.  
Abby moans, the sound soft through the hand pressed against her mouth.

There is a crumbling feeling in Tony's chest.

The man lifts something above his head, read and plastic and…

(No.)

"_You have 60 minutes. Then I burn her."_

For the first time, Ziva seems to hear. She blinks, then looks up. The expression on her face as she sees the container burns into his head, and he knows that he'll remember it until he dies.

It tips. Liquid with a touch of gold twists through the air.

She jerks.

Then the screen goes dark.


	10. Chapter Nine: Lenny

**_- Chapter Nine -

* * *

_**

Zurich is sure that you are not picking up the right news stations; that somewhere out there, someone still shows your pictures. He sends Hassam up to the room, to check each receiver.

Not long after, you hear glass shatter, followed by a dull thump.

You jerk. Zurich blinks at the ceiling, and does not seem startled.

Silence.

Zurich sits, and seems very calm.

You ask if perhaps he is keeping still. He tells you Hassam is dead.

He gets up slowly, turns off the monitors to the news stations. Only the grey images of the woods outside to watch you. His eyes have changed; the light's back. Candle beneath water, shining out of nothing.

"They've been playing a game. By not acting, force us to react. We shall not follow, will we?"

You don't understand, but he doesn't want an answer.

"We're all playing the waiting game. Time to give them something better."

Zurich shuts his eyes, thinking. You wait for a while, then sit and watch the cameras. Something's moving in the trees, but when you tell Zurich he's not listening.

His eyes open. Turns to you.

"The general who is skilled in defense hides in the most secret recesses of the earth," he says.

You perk up. You remember the game he and Hassam used to play, and you give the returning line.

"He who is skilled in attack flashes forth from the topmost heights of heaven."

He smiles, nods. "Exactly. Get the camera ready." He moves away, between the curtains.

You glance up at the roof. Quiet.

Yells.

You jump at the gunshot.

A door slams. You stand frozen. You can hear the American yelling inside the cupboard, hear him pounding his fists.

Zurich drags the Israeli woman in, ties her hands roughly. She is barely conscious.

"Get the camera ready," he repeats. He's still smiling. As you set up the camera, he drags her so she's on her knees.

Swaying slightly, her eyes waver towards you.

You look away.

The message is short and fairly abrupt.

It is the actions. They are the true mark of intention; compared to them, words are meaningless.

He reaches down beside her, picks up a carton. The smell hits you.

Fuel.

You cannot pull your eyes away. Her bound hands are before her like prayer as she sees that thing above her and understands what it means. Like the goddess Sati, like the Divine Madonna of the heathens.

You stare because you can taste in the air the countless, millions of eyes. This picture that will concrete you in history, with Zurich wild eyed and livid with the thought of being ignored, and the woman staring up at that red container.

Liquid falls, and she jerks away.

You stop the tape.

* * *

It doesn't stop him. He drenches her with it. She tries to move away, and he hits her. Something seems to have snapped in him, because he hits until she falls. Irritated, he shoves her roughly with his foot.

She doesn't move. You stare at her, prone against the dirt as she oozes fuel like blood.

He turns to you. "Get the man."

His eyes are all whites and tiny pupils, and there's blood on his face. His lips are pulled back into a smile that's all teeth and fury.

You don't know what to do. Hassam would know, but Hassam is dead.

Zurich steps forward, and you back away. He's between you and the door.

You need Hassam. He would know. He always knew how to stop Zurich when he couldn't stop himself. You don't know.

You obey. That's what you're here for.

So that's what you do.

The man is groggy, bewildered as you drag him into the room. His eye rolls and focuses on you, and there's the dull fear of a dying animal in them as you bind his hands.

Zurich looks at him, asks him something softly.

The man looks up, uncomprehending. Stares at him with nothing in his expression. Of all the things his face could have worn, that is the worst.

So Zurich beats him. You stand paralysed, telling yourself to do as Hassam would do and throw him off, but you're scared of that mad light in his eyes and your limbs just tremble. The man cries out, and you stay still and silent.

Zurich only stops when an alarm goes off; the man vomits into the dirt. Zurich steps back, disgust on his face. He looks down at the groaning man, then at the woman who lies where he dropped her.

"Weak." He snarls it. "By God, how can they be so _weak_?"

The alarm whines through the shadows, unfamiliar and shrill. It takes you both a while to find the reader, to realise what it indicates. A change in the concentration of the air.

You take in a breath. There's a bitter taste in your mouth, and you feel dizzy.

Zurich stares at the reader, mystified. The man moans.

The sound jerks him back. "Gas. There must be a hole. Find it." He ties a cloth around his face, makes you do the same.

You run your hands over the walls, searching for cracks. Roots brush against the concrete, and you shudder at their gnawing. But they cannot get in.

Nothing can get in.

You stop.

Nothing can get out then, either.

The thought never occurred to you before.

"How will we get out?" you ask him.

Zurich ignores you. He picks up the gun, shoves it roughly in his belt.

You look at the man. His hands are moving, light flickering in his fingers. He's holding something.

You look at the blood oozing down his face, and say nothing.

The smell of gas is getting stronger. Your legs feel shaky. You get around to the computers, and glance at the screen.

The woods are alive with shadows.

You turn to speak, but the words die in your mouth.

The man has untied himself.

"Zur…"

Too late.

He kicks out, sends Zurich flying off his feet. Face covered with dust and blood and teeth bared, he's on him in a second. Being in that room has turned him feral.

You jump forward, then stumble.

The woman has wrapped a hand around your ankle. You try and shake free, but her grip does not falter. You stamp on her wrist, and the hand breaks off.

Just in time to turn and see Zurich smack him in the jaw, kick him away into the wall beside you.

Wrenching the gun from his belt, he fires wildly.

You hear the noises of metal breaking skin. That funny grunting noise. It makes your stomach jolt.

He falls, and does not rise.

The smell is getting stronger. You can pinpoint it now, see the hole broken in the corner of the basement.

"You idiot!" he gags, face still red. "Cover it up!"

He grabs the blankets, shoves them in the corner where the smell hangs malevolently to plug the hole. You drag the mattress, and as you get close you feel light headed.

Above you, there's the sound of splintering wood.

Zurich's face becomes still.

It's funny. Your knees have buckled and you're on the floor, but you can't remember either happening.

You call out to him, but he walks away from you, towards the blue cables on the side of the wall.

Your abdomen hurts. Look down…

Oh.

You had felt that impact, but assumed it was fear. Being shot should hurt more.

You can hear them, upstairs. Voices, shouting.

Zurich waits as the room above fills. He's by those cables, slicing the centre cord, and the insides look wrong. There's a crack as he lights it. You watch the spark shoot along the wall, following the cable into the ceiling.

Sounds that blow out your eardrums roar above you. A shuddering crack of electricity; flashes of light. Like disco.

You smile, because that's a silly thought. You can hear yelling, but the loudest is Zurich's scream of rage.

Wood groans; above you, the roof splits. Shouts of panic, and someone falls. The beams start to topple, bringing down the floor and then the roof far above you.

You shut your eyes.

* * *

An image follows you into the dark.

Silence, and long shafts of light. The shadows gnaw at the edges of your vision, and one stands above you.

You look up into pale eyes the colour of winter morning. A gun stares at you from his hand, eye dark with retribution.

Then you know nothing.


	11. Chapter Ten: McGee

_A/N - And we come to the last of the mostly prewritten chapters. Updates are going to be slower from here on in. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far, you make me a very happy person._

* * *

**_- Chapter Ten -

* * *

_**

…

Dark…

…

…

Yep.

Dark dark dark.

I know, you said.

Oh.

…

Is that a problem?

It's not your biggest. Don't worry.

Oh. Okay then.

…

…

So, how you going?

Kind of tired…

Don't.

What?

Don't sleep.

Why?

They're coming.

Oh.

…

…

What? What is it?

I think she's dead.

She's not. Can't you hear her breathing?

I don't know.

The voice goes quiet for a time. He blinks. He can see the hollows of the room, and there's two of him looking down. One drifts off to the right. The other speaks again.

They're coming.

Who?

Don't you remember?

Boss…

The voice seems to changes. Gibbs barks down at him with long dog teeth.

_Tim, don't you dare._

Sorry…

* * *

His eyes twitch.

It's dark. He's not sure if he's still dreaming.

Where is she? He can't—  
There.

Are they dead? He squeezes his fingers, and pain shoots up his arm. Distant electricity.

No, not dead.

The sound that woke him up comes again, the scratching at the door. A skinny beam of light appears in the darkness, then explodes outward.

Light shoots to the back of his skull, and his spine arches as it rockets around his head. His scream never makes it out. Ziva whimpers, face pressed into the dirt.

A shadow drifts like smoke through the light, hands reaching. McGee flinches out of the way.  
She isn't fast enough. A hand gets her, tears her away.

"No—"

He jerks forward.

For a second he thinks the world has exploded. There is a flash of light; he thinks his ears are bleeding. A bullet snaps his shoulder. Then the door slams; he is in darkness again, and alone.

_No, no no…._

He scrabbles weakly at the door.

No, they can't kill her. Can't leave him here in the dark and kill her, they can't!

He falls back, sobbing for breath. Staggering to his knees, he throws his shoulder against the door. It shudders slightly.

Again. More. His shoulder goes numb, starts to burn. He already tried this with her, back when there was light and they could stand. The door was too strong then, and now it just mocks him. But he cannot stand this place any longer.

He looses count. Then there is a pop in his shoulder at the point of collision. He is speechless in agony.

He falls back silently, swallowed by black.

* * *

Tim…

What?

Can't you hear them?

Go away. Leave me alone.

They're almost here. Hang on.

I don't--

* * *

He wakes, moaning. His shoulder feels like a lump of meat, deformed and aching. Blood slides down his throat, sticky and slippery all in one; Must have bitten his tongue…

Something pricks his palm. He shifts, grips it clumsily. It bites into his fingers.  
The little gear from Ziva's watch.

He's still gripping it when the door opens again. A hand gets him by the collar, drags him through the dirt.  
It's bright. He shuts his eyes, struggles weakly as he's dragged along. His legs feel atrophied and only twitch at his command for them to kick out.

He's dropped to the earth, bound roughly. There's only two of them, he can't see Screamer...

Dazed, his eyes roll uneasily in the head. There's the camera, the computers, the giant who stares down at him with dark eyes.

_Is there anyone in there?_ he wonders. Those eyes are holes into somewhere else. They gaze at him blankly.

There is an odd smell in the air. He turns his head and sees Ziva, splashed across the earth and unmoving. The stink of fuel hits him, but he doesn't understand.

"Are you ready to die?" a voice asks. He stares up at Cabbie, towering above him. He's changed since the last time they made eye contact. The sense of power is gone, and his face is a skin-covered skull. He shakes with impotent rage.

McGee stares at him, and wonders why he never picked him as the dangerous one.

A flicker in that gaunt face. Mad light in the eye.

No time for him to be afraid.

Cabbie kicks him in the side. He cries out. Again. Wounds split open, and ribs fracture. He curls, can't dodge the foot that breaks his nose and nearly throws him back into darkness. He might be screaming, but he can't hear over the shrieking of his flesh.

But his hand remains bunched tight, and the gear is still there. He focuses on the sharp spikes into his fingers as pain rolls over him.

An alarm shrieks into life, and Cabbie turns away.  
He vomits into the dirt, and it's mostly blood.

For a moment he hangs suspended between two worlds. He knows something has changed, because the pair of them are shouting. There's a gun on the ground, close to his cheek. But it's beyond him to ever be able to reach it.

They are going to kill them. He supposed he always knew, but now it's certainty.

At that thought, the quiet, exhausted part of him turns away; all that's left is agony and the taste of blood.

The gear in his palm is cold.

He starts to saw at the rope.

They're talking to each other, moving about; the gun is picked up.

No matter.

The gear slices his fingertips. His hands are shaking.

The rope goes limp.

At the freedom, he is suddenly uncertain. The rope coils in his hands, still caught around his left wrist. Cabbie's feet walk past, and he can see his own blood crusting on those hard boots.

Inside, there is darkness.

His legs obey this time. They jerk out, and Cabbie falls backwards. He throws himself on him, yanking the rope tight around his throat. Face to face with bulging eyes, hands clawing his eyes. He is vacuum with matter splayed about the edges, outside of thought. He sees Cabbie's face turn purple and feels nothing at all.

Tighter.

He squeezes, and there is the sound of choking.

The sound is like a trigger; something inside him snaps, and--

—_No, no, no, oh God…_

"_Tighter, tighter!"_

_Fingers tightening, eyes rolling up to all whites—_

The memory hits him like a fist; he freezes, bewildered.

In that moment of hesitation, Cabbie's arm jerks free and smacks into his jaw. There is a moment where his vision gutters, and he is thrown hard against the wall. He drops, winded.

A dull thump smacks into his ribs, like being punched.

Feeling seems to rush out of him. Drops away as he floats, weightless. Beneath him the ground is rumbling, and he hears shouting. His hand reaches, touches his chest. Dark stickiness like tar covers his hand.

_It hurts._ He thinks it with wonder. The roof above shudders, cracks dancing like ripples through the concrete.

* * *

For the shortest of moments, he sees halos of light.


	12. Chapter Eleven: Tony

**_- Chapter Eleven - _**

* * *

We obeyed our orders. Did what had to be done. To remove  
evil from this world, sacrifices must be made so that one day it will be free.

But not today.

This is removing one chain.  
One man cannot save the world. It must free itself.  
Know then  
that they are weak,  
they are mortal.  
They can be defeated.

If you know the enemy and know yourself,  
you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Forgive me.

* * *

The art of meditation requires calm and stillness between breaths, so the very act of life seems deafening against the silence of thought.

Tony considers the pamphlet. Drops it, picks up another.

Itchy, itchy! How are you supposed to handle not being able to scratch?

The woes of chicken pox. He puzzles over them, wonders who on earth the person is who has a need for both. Whatever the case, leaving all these pamphlets around people who are facing the possibility of bereavement seems a lot like bad taste.

He puts it down, sits back in the uncomfortable vinyl chair to watch the people flit past like green ghosts. There is quite a lot of traffic through this back part of the hospital; he picks out orderlies and nurses and interns and specialists, but no surgeons at all.

Maybe they got the memo about what he does to surgeons; especially if they're pretty and kind and don't deserve it.

His lungs nudge him gently from inside, remind him to breathe in, out. He does so slowly, carefully. Fractured ribs creak, and there is no calm. Outside the aura of sweat and dirt, there's the clean nothing smell of disinfectant and cold. Beneath that, something that burns on the way down.

It's left dark stains all down Gibbs's shirt, mixing with the rusting blood. Looks like the shirt of a mechanic.

There's rust all over Tony's hands, but there's no explanation other than the truth.

(Out, damned spot.)

And here he thought he hadn't being paying attention when they'd done Shakespeare in his Freshman year. He flexes his fingers, watches the blood crack with fascination. Who'd have though McGee would have so much blood in him?

"Tony."

He looks up at Gibbs. Staring straight ahead, eyes shadowed.

"You okay?"

Concerned. Suppose he has been staring at his hands for the past four hours with his eyes rolling inward.

Tony nods stiffly. "Yeah."

(Lie.)

A person slams through the doors. Gibbs is distracted, stiffens; but the ghost is not for them and streams past. Someone else is getting bad news today.

Tony leans back, shuts his eyes. Now that he has the chance at last to sleep, he finds that it will not come.

* * *

_They had no time to plan._

_He remembers those moments after they saw the video. Arguing; voices, voices. Asking who decided to take that shot, but no one can recall._

_He thought he might scream. He couldn't burn out the vision of Ziva the candle wick, the soon to be charred bones from his head. Watched Abby's teeth sink into her lip, red slinking into the cracks._

_Could practically see the thoughts in her head.  
No choice. No _time.

_Gibbs had had enough. Nearly two weeks of doing nothing, and look what it's done. McGee absent, Ziva half dead.  
His way, or none at all._

_MacArthur assented, and all blame shifted to Gibbs._

_The tiny drill bored a hole in the wall, and they released gas. They calculated this well, at least; everyone down there should have been unconscious within minutes._

_Silence from underground._

_A circle of agents broke through the trees, to stand around the edge. His back had prickled at the eeriness of it. They moved slowly, sweeping the metal detectors across the ground like blind men stick. First one came to a stop, then two. Mines below. Four. Half down._

_Only three men still walked._

_Two._

_One of them reached the house, gloved hand touching the wall._

_And all the time, there was nothing from beneath. Asleep or waiting to pull the trigger, both looked the same from up above._

_They followed this single path through the field. Long lines, spaced far apart in case their weight exploded the living earth._

_Gibbs was ahead of Tony. He remembers wondering if seeing him evaporate would be worse then seeing the back of someone's head explode outward. The debate meant he got to the other side before he knew it._

_The door opened gently._

_A bang; everyone dropped. He thought explosion, but it was sharper then that. The smell of powder, flashcord. Guys in armor dart through the gap, then they had followed._

_Part of the floor gave way; a man vanished into darkness. The roof split, and Gibbs had thrown him outside as planks came tumbling down._

_Tony spat out dirt, dragged his head up in time to see the house lurch, the left corner swallowed by earth. A scream rose from beneath, all rage and pain. Gibbs stumbled on the bucking floor, fired down into the pit at the screaming mouth._

_Then the noise._

_This memory is burned into him._

_The smell was absolutely horrific. He had gagged, eyes watering. Couldn't see through smoke rushing like storm water down into the darkness. Stumbled, glanced back to see the body of the man shot dead by snipers, who stared back with his lips pulled back._

_Into the pit._

_A man against the wall, staring blankly at the hole in his stomach. He looked up at Tony with sad eyes, hands covered in blood._

_He could not see McGee or Ziva. Roof and floor everywhere. Rubble and dust. He scrabbled with his hands, tossed away plaster and wood until his hands bled. Dug deep while the house moaned._

_Until he found a face, covered in white powder.  
He recoiled; might have yelled. Definitely backed away._

_The face watched him. He had the darkest eyes Tony's ever seen, like tar. Looked at him, right into him, smiling through lips covered with white._

_Then the view was covered; MacArthur's men had found their priority._

_Where he sat, dampness seemed to rise to coat his fingertips. He thought it oil, till it smeared red against his palm._

_He scrapped the rocks aside, and beneath them a flat hand twitched._

* * *

"Abby."

He hears Gibbs stand, opens his eyes.

Ducky by her side. His hand grips her arm gently, but it seems to be the only thing holding him up. She slips into Gibbs's arms, holds him tight enough that his face creases.

"How's your hand?"

She smiles a little shakily as he helps her to a chair. "It hurts."

Ducky has turned to Gibbs, and the unspoken question is answered with a headshake.

"Nothing?" Abby shivers.

"No news is good news at times like this. It means nothing's gone wrong." Ducky squeezes her uninjured hand gently. He looks at Gibbs and Tony sidelong. "You two should go have your bumps and scrapes attended to."

Tony shakes his head. The idea of leaving is doing funny things to his oesophagus.

Ducky's voice is kind. "I don't think we'll get any news for a while."

"Tony." Abby grips his hand.

He looks down at it, all swathed in white, a fat paw from the bandaging. Looks at his own, sees beneath McGee's blood all the torn open skin and burns.

Gibbs stands. "Up."

Never let it be said that Tony doesn't know when Gibbs won't take no for an answer. He stands, feels the ground buck a little. No biggie. Gibbs catches his arm, holds him steady.

"You've been barbequed, boss," Tony says, eyeing the burns through Gibbs's shirt.

Gibbs smiles a little, tugs his arm. "Come on, Wobbles. We'll get you to a nurse."

"My lucky day."

* * *

_He tore his fingers to shreds pulling McGee out._

_He was alive, then; he must have been, still bleeding (going everywhere, Jesus), and he cried out when Tony pulled the stones from his chest._

_The house moaned, bore down on them all. Can't stand what's happened in its walls._

_"Tim, you'll be okay." Said it even as he revealed the almost unrecognisable face, the broken fingers, the hole gurgling in his chest._

_McGee's eyes rolled, focused on him. Terror and blank incomprehension._

_Two FBI agents came beside him; together they dragged McGee out, up the stairs. In his arms, McGee had moaned, his hand seeming to reach out._

_Tony could only glance, but he saw Gibbs, hugging Ziva under the arms as he drew her up and out from the collapsed wood. Limp like a doll, with dust in her hair._

_The house howled, and a tremor ran through the earth. They stumbled across the field and to the woods through the swarm of people. He somehow ended up on the ground, McGee's head on his knees and an army doc doing something drastic to his chest. He was motionless, but the blood still flowed._

_(Come on, McGee.)_

_Gibbs lay Ziva to rest (don't think that) beside them. After days of speaking about them like they're dead, it was blinding to have them so close that he could smell the layers of filth._

_She was still. He touched her forehead, his dry scalded skin against her damp coldness. Her face was blue, and he couldn't tell if she breathed._

_A ripple through the ground. The FBI guys dragged out the dark eyed men: The big one, the little one, the dead one._

_They only made it half way across._

_The houses clenched like a fist, then fell limp. It was this pressure that finally split the explosives buried in the foundation._

* * *

_A wall of light._

_Tony covered his eyes, bent over as splinters burned his hand; the concussion wave pressed like thumbs on his eardrums. Bent over McGee's head, protecting against the debris that thudded onto his back._

_Around him people fell like trees in a hurricane, hands over their heads. Ash filled the air, and the light went dull. Fire roared into the sky._

_Gibbs was prone over Ziva, covering her because a single spark could set her alight. Her eyes snapped open at the sound, her hand moving. Tony pressed it down into the mud as the house came down in it's own personal meteor shower. It was about then that somewhere Abby cried out, a splinter the size of a ruler fastening her hand to one of the dogwood trees._

_Far off, a sound that made his skin crawl._

_Through the descending cloud he saw them, halfway across the field. Dark shadows around a flicker like a candle._

_Man on Fire._

_Great movie, he thought distantly. He was still holding Ziva's hand, but by then it had stopped moving._

* * *

Tony shakes his head a little. He's got that sound stuck in his ear like tinnitus.

Guess Zurich was a little clumsy with the fuel. Or crazy's one hell of an accelerant. Either way, he's joined McGee and Ziva on the edge of the razor.

At last, the doors open.

Dr. Crichton is small and whispering, like a librarian. But Tony saw the look in her eye when they said no relatives were coming for Ziva, and he puts her right beneath Gibbs on the list of people not to piss off.

"She's been transferred to the ICU."

Abby's voice is hesitant. "So she's okay?"

She stops her with a look. Iron in those grey eyes. "Please understand. She is very ill. She's had a chest infection for a while, but it's been untreated. There is still a chance that she may die."

"Pneumonia?"

"Yes. It has also become apparent that she inhaled some of the petroleum, which has led us to put her on a ventilator. She's on oxygen and antibiotics, but we just have to hope. I'm sorry, but at this late stage, her chances aren't great."

A moment of quiet. Tony knows he should be feeling something right now, but he's got nothing.

Gibbs speaks at last. "Do you know about Tim McGee?"

"As far as I know he's still in surgery. I understand that someone is coming to collect forensic evidence?" Gibbs nods once.

She and Ducky exchange quiet words Tony doesn't understand, but he blocks them out when he sees who security is leading towards them.

He doesn't think he's seen a face as white as Sarah McGee's. She turns to Gibbs, looking for anything to tell her it's going to be okay. He sits her down beside him, grips her hand and whispers something that manages to make her sit back in the chair, even though the rigidity is still there. Her eyes move over them all, linger on him and the blood he didn't quite manage to wash off.

(Like she knows)

Not long after security brings in a pair of FBI agents, looking distinctly ruffled. The female agent follows the nurse into the ICU, kit in hand.

"It's insane out there." The male agent sat down, shook his head. "You know reporters keep trying to sneak in?"

Tony clears his throat. Hasn't used it for a while. "Should release a statement, Boss."

Gibbs eyes are on him for a moment, and the blue is as unreadable as ever. "What do you suggest?"

"Say most of the damage was done by the partial collapse of the house. Or the explosion."

Gibbs looks away for a moment to think, stares at his hands. Thinking back to Ziva and McGee lying there in the dirt and the light. By that look Tony knows Gibbs saw exactly what he did.

Then he stands, walks away down the corridor to make a phone call to Fornell.

The male agent's look is wry. "Smart move."

"Why are you lying?"

Sarah McGee is staring at him, eyes dull and far too familiar for his liking. If she was even half as smart as McGee, she was certainly smarter than him.

"People are going to get angry."

"So?" Anger flares, but he doesn't look away. "We've got the right to be angry. They nearly killed my brother."

The agent tries to explain. "American soil makes it different."

(And you didn't see what they did.)

Anger at the attack was expected, but wars are built on the back of insult and outrage. Better they blame an incompetent police rescue than people who were removed from blame except by name or race. And if they got the chance, at least someone in this could be saved.

Tony looks at his fingers, and the blood that will not go away.

* * *

The Doctor for McGee is called Friedman; Tony mishears it the first time as Free Man, and thinks it very appropriate.

The bullet has been removed, and McGee is stabilising.  
At last, they can go in.

(Like a tour of the ICU.)

All these quiet rooms full of quiet people. Though the first they see is not so silent.

There is a smell of soap from scraping off the petroleum; her hair is damp and curling, and he thinks dirt's stuck behind on her skin until he realises.  
Ziva David has never been so colourful. Or as bruised.

Head thrown back, her right arm is bound in a brace and fingers clawing nothing. There's a tube shoved down her throat and about four different IV lines going in. Her chest moves with the ventilator in ugly jerks.

(She looks uncomfortable.)

Can hear Ducky and Gibbs talking to Dr Crichton by the door; something about lungs and fluid and unexplained burns. Abby strokes her hand with its torn nails and opened knuckles. Tony somehow can't bring himself to touch her while she's so helpless, even though she'd probably never know.

"Ziva."

He hears the crack in his voice.

Not even a flicker. She's under heavy sedation to numb away the pain, and from what he can see he imagines it was quite a lot.

He is last in line in the long trek to see McGee; he got a glimpse close up, and that's about as much as he can cope with for now.

Sarah McGee cries when she sees what they've done to her brother. Just stands there with a hand pressed against her mouth and sound leaking out the edges. Abby wraps an arm around her, and she weeps into her shoulder.

Tony can't make himself go into that room.

Gibbs stands at the door and his face is impassive, hewn from granite and iron nerve not to let anything show. But he glances away a little too fast, eyes are a little too bright.

"Is he going to be okay?"

Dr Friedman looks him in the eye. "Honestly?"

Tony doesn't like honesty. Not in places like this.

"He would have done better to get in a car crash. If he lives, it will be luck only."

* * *

Luck's a funny thing.

He kept thinking about it, all those long hours with the two of them balancing on the fulcrum. Trying to separate the good and bad and getting so confused he wanted to switch his head off.

But one thing he does know. He knows it was only luck that makes it him looking down, and not McGee. There was no control then, and there is none now as they balance and balance with death on either side.

He takes a cab home, showers, and sleeps for nearly eighteen hours.

For the first time in two weeks, he dreams of nothing.


	13. Chapter Twelve: Tony

___A/N: Just letting you guys know that a friend of mine named 88keys wrote a oneshot companion piece for this called _Story Of The Year_, which fits in really nicely between chapters 4/5. I'd really suggest you read it, because a) it's awesome and b) I may make some references to it later. :)_

_**- Chapter Twelve -**_

* * *

It takes the explosives experts three days to clear the site.

The house is gone, sucked into the twenty foot crater blown in the earth; of the basement, only two walls remain. Mines have shattered the earth and the trees arch away.

Tony finds this niggling at him. He knows that the house should have collapsed when Zurich sliced the flashcord and brought the roof down, to burn them all to pieces. Fact, known and ignored.

But he cannot understand why. For a man so interested in gaining infamy, to die from it seems like an exercise in futility.

He and Gibbs stand at the edge, looking down. Even through the smoke there's still that smell of fear and rage, sweat and heat sunk into the stone. They half slide down the side of the hole into the pit, and he feels a tightness in his chest.

He feels them here. A part of him frets at the mess, and he feels like he should look for pieces of them under the rocks.

Most of it has been cleared away by the time they get there; the rubble and the awful buckets. He'd praise heaven and kiss the earth for the luck that spared them that job. NCIS is in charge of the site, and he has the cynical thought that the FBI has left them to pick up the bones. Gibbs talks to the lead agent, who shakes her head at his question. Two whole teams pick over the site, and with their arrival that makes two-and-a-half. Gibbs walks with her to the burnt shells of the computers, and Tony turns away. What he is left with is the tiny closet under the stairs.

He stares for a moment, hand tight around the camera.

Just a room, and a broken one at that.

He takes pictures at intervals as he pulls away the wreckage. Slow, precise. Cold. A button emerges, the broken husk of a light bulb. He finds a sock he thinks is black till he realises it's still faintly damp and crusty all over. He tries not to look at the size.

(big/McGee)

He piles the stones to one side, reveals something bigger. He takes a picture, drags it out. Blanket. Caught up in it, two jackets. There's rust over everything.

(Must have been cold down here in the earth.)

The thought rises, lone cloud in his empty mind. He pauses, and his eyes move down without his wanting.

The glass of the light bulb is all black and sooty inside with the filaments hanging down. Burnt out; so for at least part of it they were in the dark.

(Well, we were all in the dark.)

He's gripping their jackets tight in his gloved fingers. He bags them.

A small space emerges around him. He hunkers down, shuts his eyes, and blocks out the sound with the pad of his thumbs. He stares at the dark, can hear the dull rumble of blood moving through his head. His nose stings at the smell of burning and dirt.

But though he tries to imagine them forced to share this tiny space, he cannot.

The crunch of footsteps nearby, coming to rest a foot or so away.

"Just trying to get a feel for the place, Boss," he says without opening his eyes.

"Feel anything?"

He opens his eyes, looks up. Gibbs is hunched over and filling the doorway.

"Cramped."

Gibbs eyes the hole, then steps away. Tony can't even guess what he's thinking.

"Got a call from MacArthur."

Tony glowers. "What, the idiot not done with crapping all over place?"

"Zurich died about an hour ago."

A jolt in his chest, and his head jerks upright.

That expression he can read, and it makes him shiver. There is strangled rage in his Boss's eyes as he turns away, walks back through the pit.

And so Zurich dies, having never regained consciousness. Now Tony will never get the chance to pummel him into mincemeat.

And once again, Gibbs can do nothing. If Ziva and McGee live, they will have no satisfaction.

* * *

On the way back to NCIS, they are followed.

Tony watches in the side mirror. Dark car, dark windows. He opens his mouth to warn Gibbs, then sees the model.

FBI car.

(It's for us, isn't it?)

Wants to ask Gibbs, but knows all he'll get is stony silence. They've been hearing whispers from high up that this is causing friction, but he hasn't read the papers for two weeks and doesn't intend to start now. Ignorance is safer.

There are still News Vans outside the building, and Tony once again spends a few good minutes trying to work out what the sports channel could possibly want with them. His retinas get burnt out by the flash of lights as they pass, but it's a military complex so the rats stay outside.

When they get to the evidence garage, there's already a van there unloading evidence, with FBI on the side.

Agent MacArthur is waiting for them, and is speaking before they're even properly out of the truck.

"The dead man has been identified as Hassam Adib. He was an officer in IRGC. We haven't found any trace of John Doe."

Gibbs eyes the boxes. "Why aren't you upstairs telling the director this?"

"I already have, but as you are the current agent in charge of this investigation, I'm telling you as a courtesy. The case is officially yours."

(Case? What case? Everyone's either dead or in hospital.)

Tony looks at the evidence. He knows much more was taken then they are getting back, and wonders how big it was that the FBI needs them as the decoy.

Gibbs considers for a long moment. Then he takes a step around Macarthur, walks up towards the directors office.

Tony smirks at him. "I think someone just got blanked."

Macarthur shows a flicker of irritation at the tone, but has the sense to say nothing. Tony is disappointed.

"You seem to be mad at me, Agent DiNozzo."

Tony shrugs. "Well, two of my co-workers are in hospital with tubes stuck in god knows where and your filling over holes with putty. But it's probably irrational of me."

The gaze does not change. "I wasn't their captor."

"No, but you didn't help." It comes out a snap. "Gibbs saved them. He found that drill. What did you do? Got the million dollar prize burnt to death."

MacArthur doesn't even flinch. "I'll admit it should not have happened like that."

"You didn't care about them. Some has to suffer for the good of all, right?"

The look MacArthur returns is not as he expects. It is one closer to pity than anything else.

"They were already lost, Tony."

He stills at the warning in his tone. MacArthur steps around him, into the elevator.

"You'll understand later, if you aren't careful."

Tony stands there trying to work out exactly what he was just threatened with, and cannot.

The door shuts, and MacArthur is gone.

* * *

He takes the evidence down to Abby's lab; as he enters, he stops dead.

There are two mannequin busts wearing their clothes. She is bent over, buttoning up Ziva's shirt.

"Abby, that's unbelievably creepy."

She steps back, straightens the shoulders. "I'm trying to work out what happened."

"I though that's what the machines were for." He takes two steps to the side, puts down the box.

She shakes her head. "Not that. Didn't you see them?"

Tony opens his mouth, but there is nothing ready to come out so it shuts again. He did, and understands.

Evidence is spread out over the table. Bits of computer, the jackets. Broken watches stare up at him. McGee's is stuck on 11:11PM and Ziva's is eviscerated, so one hand points at a bloody sock and the other at a battered video camcorder from separate evidence bags.

Even with his head down, he can feel the hollow eyes following him. He looks up, stares at the ragged hole in the chest of McGee's stripped shirt, shadowed with a dark starburst.

"I always hated that shirt," he says.

Mannequin McGee is silent.

* * *

The fifth day comes and goes; McGee and Ziva do not wake.

Though he knows the reasons are medical, the idea still makes his skin crawl. Ducky tells him the reasons are of pain and discomfort, but he has the suspicion it is to wait for the world to lose interest.

He is alone this time. It's very late, and though he gave his best smile to the nurse he knows it was pity and not his charm that caused her to let him through. He lets his feet decide, and finds himself standing at the door to Ziva's room. Secretly he knows it's part of the coward in him; even with the ventilator, she is still less terrifying than McGee.

It's not so bad as it was. The bruises are fading, and if it weren't for her slackness he could pretend she was just sleeping. Though he would have to do a lot to imagine away the tube down her throat, still rasping away inside her chest.

He's been sitting here for an hour, but he can't think why. Slideshows flickering in front of his eyes, and he can't tear himself away from the image of them lying there.

His hand drifts, touches her fingers; they're cold. From this angle he can see the shadows of hands on her neck, and he's so angry because nothing a week old should be that colour.

_"You'll understand later, if you aren't careful."_

Shakes his head a little. That voice has been following him for days, but he can't_ think..._

His hand moves without his consent; he draws back sharply, stares down.

Her fingers are twitching.

He is still, without breath. Watches them limp by her side, almost convinced himself it was wishful thinking.

A tremor. Index finger curls under, palm flattens. White gleams from beneath her eyelids.

"Ziva?"

Her hand fists, and he fumbles for the call button.

"Ziva."

Her head turns fractionally, brow furrowing a little. There is a rasping noise in her throat. Eyelids flicker again, but don't open.

There's a moment where he thinks she has fallen. He wants to grab her hand, hug her, shake her conscious but he's just sitting there too scared to move.

Then her hand twitches, lifts. It moves up, grips the end of the endotracheal tube.

"Woah." He grabs her wrist. "Don't think you'll like pulling on that."

The fingers loosen after a moment, and he swears he sees her lips move.

A nurse comes into the room, face lighting up when she sees. "Nice to see you awake, Ziva!" She leans over, smiles. "Do you want to see if you can breathe without the tube?"

Ziva's head twitches towards the voice, and she moans. The nurse beckons over another, glances at Tony. "We'll have to ask you to step outside. We can let you back in after."

He nods, moves back. The blinds are closed in the window.

His legs are shaking. Odd, he didn't even notice. There's a seat outside, and he folds into it. His legs tremor worse, and he grips his knees tight.

This late the only ones around are staff, so the woman staring at a vending machine with dull eyes is not hard to spot.

He hesitates for only a moment, then rises to move beside her.

"Hey, Sarah."

She starts, stares at him like she doesn't quite remember who he is. "Oh. Hi."

Her eyes are rimmed with red, hair tied loose and escaping. He opens his mouth to ask about her parents, then thinks she could take it the wrong way and instead says: "You're here late."

"They've taken Tim off the drugs." She resettles her shoulders, doesn't meet his eye. "I don't want him to wake up alone."

"'s he okay?"

"Yeah. He's, uh," she takes a breath "he hasn't changed."

She presses her lips together to hide their trembling.

"He's going to be okay," he says. He's surprised at his own conviction, but as he listens he is quite sure he's not lying. "Tim's one of the toughest people I know."

She nods, but doesn't look up. A tear darts down her nose.

He doesn't really realise he's moved until his arm is around her shoulder. It's what he imagines a big brother hug to be, but for all he knows she just feels worse. He has a sudden image of the glare McGee would give him to see him hugging his sister. It's followed quickly by an amused look from Ziva and a deadpan stare from Gibbs.

"Tony."

They move apart as the nurse sticks her head out the door. "You can come in, in a little bit." From behind her comes the wretched sound of coughing. Ziva sounds half drowned and the sound is frankly alarming.

Sarah glances up at him. "Is she okay?"

"Still not out of the woods."

Oh, he doesn't like the phrases he just used. Not at all. Smells of dogwood and hickory trees.

"Is it true? That one's still alive?"

"Yeah. Don't know how long for, though."

He can see the look in her eye as clear as if she said it.

(Good.)

She nods a little, moves away down the hall.

The blinds are reopened. Ziva's half sitting up in the bed, eyes closed and sucking in air. The sight of her clawing weakly at the oxygen mask breaks his heart just a little.

He keeps her company until she eventually struggles into sleep. Her eyes flicker and dart and are not open long enough to focus on anything, let alone him.

He wonders at the odd burns in the crook of her elbow.

* * *

It is after she falls silent that he finally manages to walk through those doors and see Tim.

Not as bad as he imagines, yet worse for knowing it's real. He's propped up in the bed, eyes closed and bare chest rising faintly. There's a track of neat white bandage from beneath the collarbone to hide the puncture in his chest. Right through the lung and out the back. He'll probably dig it out of the wall sometime in the next few days.

Tony stands beside him, looks down. Someone's X marks the spot on his ribs, except with feet treads and each slash about a week apart. An archaeologist would have a wonderful time: the wounding of Timothy McGee in layers of bruise.

His hand curls loosely by his side, fingers bound; he understands they had to rebreak them to set them straight.

(Your last injury, Probie.)

Surprising the mess you can make in two weeks.

* * *

"Gibbs."

He looks up; glance only to show that he heard. He knew it was Tony before the door upstairs even opened.

With his entrance announced, he sits down on the stair and watches him sand at the wood, long planks bent over double to make ribs. They sit in silence, Tony listening to the rasp of sound like the ghost of a ventilator.

There's nothing to say, but so much clogging up behind his lips. Tony has seen him grip McGee's hand, brush the hair back from her face. All the time with his look that Tony cannot read, but he knows he doesn't like it.

So instead of the questions he tells him that Ziva is conscious, Tim was off the drugs. There's a look of relief on Gibbs's face, but still that shadow.

"So I guess it's over, then."

The question hangs between them, waiting. Gibbs's hand doesn't change its movement.

"What do you want, DiNozzo?"

"Why do you look like that?"

He's so scared of them both, silent in those beds. He wants Ziva and McGee back the way they were. He wants to make her laugh and him roll his eyes. And those words MacArthur said are haunting him and he can't...

(It's never going back, is it?)

At the centre of it all is that look in Gibbs's eye.

Waiting for the balance to shift.

* * *

It happens early the next morning; he stops in on the way to work. Abby is already there, waiting. Ducky has gone on ahead, to talk to McGee's family and offer comfort in a way the rest of them cannot.

When they look through the window he thinks she's sleeping, she's so still. Then her head shifts to the left, eyes moving.

"Ziva!"

She starts. "Abby…" Her voice cracks as Abby hugs her very gently. Her good arm lifts in return, and Tony pretends he doesn't see her eyes glinting.

Tony gives her a crooked smile. "Can't let you two out of my sight, can I?"

"Ducky's here too, he'll say hello in a minute, he's with McGee's family."

She stills, glances between them in alarm. "'S he...?"

"You both made it out." A dodge of a reply, for to say he was okay would be not quite correct.

She sags visibly. If Abby's arm hadn't been there, she would have fallen back.

For a moment it is silent as they take each other in; Abby is content to grip Ziva's hand, convince herself she's alive. Tony sees her eyes moving over them, linger on Abby's hand and his fingers.

What to say, after so long?

Ziva speaks first. "Are they...?"

There is no doubt as to who it is she's talking about.

"They're dead." Abby says it gently. "Hassam and Zurich."

There is confusion in her eyes, and he realises.

She never knew their names.

So he tells her. Who they were, what Zurich was, the one still alive in a different ICU. She listens, and after he finishes is silent a moment.

"Screamer."

"What?"

"What we called him. Cabbie, Lenny... " She takes a wheezing breath. "Screamer."

There is a littler shiver walking up and down his vertebrae. He shifts a little. "Do I get a prize for guessing who's who?"

She seems to have lost track of the conversation. As he spoke her eyes had clouded over, and he had seen her grip on Abby tighten.

"Could you…. get…. Ducky, please? I… talk with him." The short sentence leaves her breathless, pale.

Abby nods, heads out into the corridor.

It is just them alone now. She reaches over, turns over his hand to look at his torn fingers.

"House collapsed. We had to dig you out."

She shakes her head. She does not recall, so does not remember the moment of raining fire and being smothered, of him pressing her hand into the dirt.

Ziva moves her hand away, letting his droop. Her next question is quiet.

"How long were we in there?"

"Thirteen days."

"Only." A question behind it. Sees her matching it up inside her head, and not finding an answer.

His smile is crooked. "Seemed long from my side of the fence."

She smiles back from under the mask, and he feels a little better.

"You look like death."

A look of satisfaction in her eye. "But I… am not."

"No need to sound so surprised."

She laughs, but it is swallowed by the juddering cough that curls her forward. He grips her shoulder gently, feels her stiffen.

"Need water?"

She shakes her head once. Though he removes his hand quickly, he felt her shivering in the short time of contact.

His eyes slide across to the heart rate monitor.  
Climbing.

(What's wrong? And are you okay?)

Fight to come out, but he tries to clamp them in.

One word manages to escape. "What?"

She shakes her head. It's hit the hundreds. She shuts her eyes for a moment, holds her breath. The count slips back into the double digits.

"Ziva. Oh, my dear girl." Ducky comes into the room, and Tony moves out of the way to let him by the bed.

Abby nudges him, and they go outside.

"Well."

"That's one." She gives a small smile. There's a gurgling noise, and she looks down.

"I'm starving," she says in surprise. Tony laughs, hooks her arm with his and leads her to the vending machine.

There's a flicker out of the corner of his eye, and he glances back.  
Ducky has closed the blinds.

* * *

It is a little while later that Ducky emerges from the room. His face is smooth and blank, and Tony feels his skin prickle.

Abby is on him in a flash. "What? Did something—"

"No." It comes out sharp, then he softens her tone. "She just wanted to know what had happened to her. Medically, I mean." He rubs the bridge of his nose. "Have you seen Doctor Friedman?"

Tony focuses on him hard. "No."

"Oh." Something flickers across his face, then he smiles gently. "She's asleep now, it's probably best to let her rest." He grips Abby's elbow, and together they leave the ICU.

* * *

Had Tony been thinking straight, he would have said the trouble started then.

But even with a sense of unease, he did not.


	14. Chapter Thirteen: McGee

_**- Chapter Thirteen -**_

* * *

It takes him a long time to realise what is missing.

No pain.

Other things are felt through the endless dark – the taste of rubber, skin itching – but the concept of no pain is noticed first and seems to raise some feeling of doubt. He is so very aware of the sound of his own rasping breath, because beyond that he can't hear anything at all.

Gradually, there are other things. Rubbing. No, wrong word. Brushing. Feathers on his palm. He hears his parents, and they sound sad.

But then his concentration breaks, and he loses them. It happens a lot: perception ripped from under him. He is entombed in the silent earth, though it is not so bad; for when rough hands drag him through the underground room he can turn away and it vanishes. The smell of dirt gradually weakens, and he thinks these other dreams will fade with him into the black. It will not be so bad.

Then comes the sound of breathing, though this time it is not his. It stays, even when he loses track. He tries to locate it, feeling the creak of his neck moving.

"Tim?"

The voice is sharp, and comes from everywhere. He flinches, hesitates. Uncertain.

"Tim."

Feeling. Someone is gripping his fingers. He's afraid, because he knows the voice.

"S-Sarah?"

This new voice must be his. It sounds broken.

He tries to open his eyes, but light slices his mind apart and he turns away. His hand clings to hers and he's scared because he can't feel anything. It's so white and he can only hear them breathing.

"Am I dead?"

A wet sounding laugh. "No, you're fine. You're okay."

Where did the pain go? He's shivering, but he feels nothing. The walls have gone, he can feel their vacancy, but his hands can't move to stretch out. Where are the walls?

Voice again, that too real voice and the too hard hand holding his. "You're out. It's okay."

Twice said, less meant. _No pain_, his body reminds him, and there must be something wrong. His mind searches and remembers the ceiling opening up, and light for the first time in days. It's trapped him in this halfway place of numbness.

He shudders, escapes away into the shadows and the smell of dust.

* * *

She fades, and what's left is far more confusing and fragmented. He recalls only snatches and can't seem to link them together to any reasonable continuity.

Sometimes, he is in a hospital. He can barely move through broken bones and bullet holes. He swears he can still feel it burning in his chest, though a nurse tells him three times she saw them take it out. He can't quite work out how he got here, and he's never awake long enough to ask.

Other times, he hears the sound of the light buzzing and can hear them moving around behind the door. But he is alone in the dark and the dirt. He can't tell which one is the dream.

At some point, he is shaken awake, or falls back into sleep.

Hospital, with men standing over him. But they are not doctors. He doesn't know who they are.

"Timothy McGee?"

He looks between them. Shuts his eyes and opens them again. Still there.

One of them leans close, and his voice is low. "We need to talk to you." His hand is close by his head, and the backs of it are all hairy.

"What…" Wow, that_ hurts._ Feels like he's swallowed barbed wire.

"Agent McGee." Voice is sharper.

Go away, go away. He just wants to sleep.

"What are you doing."

His eyes open. That voice doesn't belong to either of the suddenly silent men.

"Agent Gibbs, you shouldn't be here."

"Get out. Now."

"You have no authority—"

"Care to try me?"

Quiet. Every threat in the world hidden between syllables. The two consider. Then Hairy Hands steps back.

"We will have to come back, you understand."

"And when you do he won't have half the pharmacy shoved up his arm." Gibbs moves forward. "Get. Out."

The shadow men walk away. Tim blinks his eyes, watches a pale ghost peer down at him. He feels pressure on his arm for an instant. The hand is real and he suddenly understands that he is here and not dead. That place with the men walking outside the door is smoke in his head, and here and now he is in a hospital looking up at Gibbs, who is looking back.

"Boss…" It comes out a dull croak, and agony spikes up his chest.

The jaw above him tightens. "Go back to sleep, Tim."

There's a commotion outside. It fades into the jangle of his head, and he barely has time to shut his eyes.

* * *

_He dreams of the taste of blood and cold touching the small of his back. Cabbie smiles down at him._

_"What are you waiting for? She's right there."_

_He looks down, sees—_

He feels a jolt in his chest, gasps at the pain it causes. Opens his eyes to black hair and shadows.

"Ziva?" he croaks.

He knows it's wrong the moment it comes out, for the head turns.

Abby. Sitting by the bed with her head turned to the dark window. She starts, turns. When she smiles it shivers a little on her face.

"Hi, Timmy."

Shy, she touches his hand. He can feel her shaking, so he opens his fingers. Her skin's clammy and rough with goosebumps. It shocks him awake, blinking at her. There are shadows under her eyes and she wears no makeup.

"What?" he says, because it's the first thing he can think of.

"What what?" Tony looks bemused. He is slouched in a chair in the corner, eyes half shut, though it's hard to tell from the shadows.

It's night outside, and raining. Odd, he thinks. Even underground he should have known about the rain. He turns his eyes between them, making sure he's not dreaming. They look awful. Ill and grey. Wonders why, for they were the ones in the sun. Therefore they must be real, for they surprise him.

Her hand tightens. "How are you feeling?" she asks him. Her voice is timid.

"Okay." It sounds like a file on wood, and he swallows. "How did…?"

"We got you out." Tony's tone is flat, abrupt. Abby looks away and out the window.

Tim tries to remember, but there is only that last moment of light with his chest burning. There is a desert between there and here.

"How?"

"We tried to dig you out." Tony shrugs, evades the question. "It sort of worked." He seems ill at ease in his chair, and watches with clouded eyes. His fingers are bound with gauze, and Tim feels a little ill to realise that he probably wasn't being metaphorical. Abby's other hand is bound tight.

Too many little details are coming at him at once, and he has to shut his eyes for a minute. He can hear them sitting, and waiting. The realness, the living weight of them, presses him down in suffocation. He listens to the sound of rain, feet squeaking outside the curtains. But above that he can hear a neon light fizzing, from somewhere to his left. The sound calms him, and he opens his eyes again.

Above him Abby's head is turned away, looking out the window. There is a distant, drawn expression on her face. She always hated rain.

There's a question he wants to ask, but he can't find it. Though his thoughts are ordered enough, he doesn't know where to go from here. He stares across at Tony, still slumped in his chair. He picks his own question to answer.

"You've been asleep for eight days since we got you out," he says. "You were in there thirteen."

Seems so generic, the way Tony says 'in there'.

He does not wait for the next question. "Ziva's okay. The only one of the terrorists who made it was the big guy. Lenny?"

"Oh."

So. Cabbie and Screamer are dead. And she lives.

He feels nothing.

Actually, not true. He's skin is pebbling and he's trembling, so he must be cold. His head…

He moves his stiff hand upward, touches his head. A naked scalp shivers under his fingertips.

Abby looks embarrassed. "You, um… had lice. They figured…thought it would be easier this way."

He feels the bumps on his head, the itch of red welts across his stomach and down his arms.

He know he should be mortified. He knows they expect him to be, and he can practically see the quips dangling on Tony's tongue and the reassurances in Abby.

But he doesn't care. He looks at the bites and can honestly say he doesn't care at all.

So he says nothing, and so do they.

* * *

He wakes. 1:01 AM.

It takes him a long time to fall back asleep. He is listening for something that isn't there, and it takes him until daybreak to realise what.

The buzz of a dying lightbulb, and the sound of breathing.

* * *

For the next three days, he moves. Only in the most loose sense, of course. Mostly it's him lying on his back twitching like an overturned insect.

Legs are shrivelled. It takes him a whole day to sit up, another to turn his legs to swing down from the bed. The first time he tries to stand they don't even flicker. When he tries the second, broken glass stabs into his calf muscle and he feels it all the way up to the hole in his chest.

He sees his family, Sarah. His mother touches his prickly head gently then hugs him and his father cries in front of him for the first time in his life. Tony and Gibbs visits some and Abby a lot, but he senses that someone has told them to give him some space because there is always an anxiety to them that tightens the air, as though they worry he might shatter if they breathe too loudly. Ducky asks after his health and his head and seems almost relieved at his jumbled memories. He feels bewildered and, somehow, ashamed.

But these emotions are fleeting, and when he is alone there is nothing. He sits and feels not empty, because there is nothing to fill.

Mostly, he sleeps.

* * *

Late on the fourth day (Twelfth day? He can't remember), he stands by himself.

He's hunched and trembling, but that is enough. It's one more creaking step to getting out of this place, back to where he might remember himself. Nothing Tim is beginning to worry him in a vague sort of way.

"That's great!" The physiotherapist grins as he sinks slowly back onto the side of the bed. "Want do you want to do now? Have a rest?"

He considers. "Could I use the bathroom?"

He rushes off to discuss it with the head nurse. Tim sits patiently, wistfully. He remembers it was a very long time ago that he used something that flushed.

A nurse comes back, unplugs him from monitors and offers a large red arm to grip. He makes his slow, shambling way to the door six feet to his left, wheeling his IV and dragging his left foot. She opens the door, then retreats to a safe distance.  
McGee shuts the door after her, and is somehow relieved that there is no lock. The thought of one makes his heart twist his throat.

He spends longer in there than he needs. The cool clean whiteness of it is like heaven, and some very distant part feels pleasure. But there is something else he came in here to see. He needs to see what it is that makes people's eyes drift, look away.

He stares at himself in the mirror.

A scarred, wide-eyed stranger stares at him blankly.

"What happened to you?" he murmurs, then shakes his head. In the mirror the man shudders.

The biggest shock is his face. It looks like someone has puffed him up with a bicycle pump. His skin is red and stretched tight and decaying with bruises.

He drags off the hospital gown, looks at himself in the mirror. It's more a cursory glance than anything. Fist sized bruises the colour of dirt are sunk into his stomach, there's a thick ugly scar on the mirror side to his heart still showing holes where the stitches used to go.

_Do you see yourself, Timothy McGee?_

He does.

_Wow, the screwed you over, didn't they? Look at what they did to your face, man. That hole punched in your chest. Doesn't it make you mad?_

He looks at his face in the mirror, and there's not even a flicker.

He turns around, peers over his shoulder.

"Woah," Skin wasn't meant to be so colourful. There are boot shapes on his shoulder blades, all across his back.

He frowns. Marching up either side of his spine are penny sized welts, crusting over. He reaches to try and touch one with his fingers, hisses at sudden, sharp pain.

That's when he sees it. In the thick muscle next to his neck, deep red welts puckered with infection.

His fingers rise, brush the half-moon sunk into his back.

His eyes widen.

Air rushes out of him, and he clutches the sink because he knows he's going to be sick.

* * *

He wakes. 4:14 AM.

Fifth time tonight.

* * *

The universe is having a balanced month. Thirteen days after they were exhumed, a nurse pushes Ziva into his room.

She's in a wheelchair. Atrophied legs, just like him. The accessories she brings are an IV (only one bag, unlike him), three trailing lines and an oxygen tank. The mask on her faces fogs up gently when she breathes, crinkles a little when she smiles. Cables rope out from the crook in her elbow and the back of her hand, pool in her lap.

The nurse excuses himself, and they are alone.

"Hey." He is doomed to croaking, it seems.

"Hello, McGee." Her voice is rough and cracks along the words. He sees her looking him over, her eye lingering on the scar on his chest. "Are you okay?"

"I'm alive." Tries to smile, but whatever expression she sees makes her look away and down. She fiddles with the plastic tag around her wrist

There is silence between them. It borders on uncomfortable, but they have really gone past that kind of awkwardness. Shouldn't they?

"Is…"

He has no idea what he wants to ask. No idea what they should say, now that they finally made it through.

"Is he still alive?" he asks.

Lenny. Surely he has a real name out here. Screamer and Cabbie sound odd and fake. This world of white sheets and grey curtains, this is real.

Her eyelids lower as her fingers still gnaw at the tag on her wrist. "Yes. He is still unconscious."

He's still not sure what to think of that. Sometimes when he closes his eyes, he remembers his face looking down at him when he first woke up in that place. Dark eyes he even now can't fathom.

He hears the squeak of wheels as she moves closer. Her hand lifts and, seeing he doesn't recoil, grips his wrist.

It's funny, how well he knows her hand. He's felt it cold around his broken fingers, against his battered head, touching him in the side when his voiced failed and against his cheek when he accepted he was going to die.

Now it's chapped, dry with peeling nail beds. There is a cannula in the back of her hand and her nails are broken. She gently holds his wrist, looks at the bandages around his fingers with the corners of her mouth drawn down. She's wearing a look distantly reminiscent of pain.

"I'm glad you're okay," he says.

Her eyes crease; for a moment, she locks her fingers with the stubs of his. "And you, Tim."

They speak of nothing things, load up the quiet with irrelevances they thought they might not talk about again. She tells him that twice now reporters have tried to sneak into her room, and Gibbs nearly broke one of their arms. He thinks back to the men with hairy hands, but doubts. From that early part of his memories, he still can't quite tell which parts were real.

There are things neither of them wants to talk about, and that's fine. One of them is Abby and Tony and the shadow of Gibbs behind them.

That, perhaps, is not.

His eyes are starting to droop, she breathes slower. Both of them silent, now. Not trying so hard to fill empty space. It's not something they're used to.

He stirs at the sound of feet, opens his eyes as the nurse grips the handle bars, starts to gently roll her away. Her arm rolls, falls limp. The nurse gently moves it back onto her lap, and Tim can see a round burn near the crook of her elbow. Size of a penny.

He feels a sharp pain in his shoulder. For the first time in thirteen days, he feels something.

Deep, deep. Fear.

"Ziva…" he says.

It's in his voice. She stills, face turns slowly up to him. There's something in the way her jaw is held, the wide, glassy look of her eye, that makes his voice fail.


End file.
